(16) "And now, as all the world is in error, I, though I know the true path,—how shall I guide? If I know that I cannot succeed and yet try to force success, this would be but another source of error. Better, then, to desist and strive no more. But if I strive not, who will? "An ugly man who has a son born to him in the middle of the night will hurry up with a light, in dread lest the child should be like himself. "An old tree is cut down to make sacrificial vessels, which are then ornamented with colour. The stump remains in a ditch. The sacrificial vessels and the stump in the ditch are very differently treated as regards honour and dishonour; equally, as far as destruction of the woods original nature is concerned. Similarly, the acts of Robber Chê and of Tsêng and Shih are very different; but the loss of original nature is in each case the same. "The causes of this loss are five in number; viz.—The five colours confuse the eye, and the eyes fail to see clearly. The five sounds confuse the ear, and the ear fails to hear accurately. The five scents confuse the nose, and obstruct the sense of smell. The five tastes cloy the palate, and vitiate the sense of taste. Finally, likes and dislikes cloud the understanding, and cause dispersion of the original nature. "These five are the banes of life; yet Yang and Mih regarded them as the summum bonum. They are not my summum bonum. For if men who are thus fettered can be said to have attained the summum bonum, then pigeons and owls in a cage may also be said to have attained the summum bonum!

(6) Vimalakirti said: “Yes, if all things are illusions, why did you ask me where I died to be reborn here? Sariputra, death is unreal and deceptive, and means decay and destruction (to the worldly man), while life which is also unreal and deceptive means continuance to him. As to the Bodhisattva, although he disappears (in one place) he does not put an end to his good (deeds), and although he reappears (in another) he prevents evils from arising.”

ALL this equipment the Sage has ordained for the sake of wisdom; so he that seeks to still sorrow must get him wisdom. We deem that there are two verities, the Veiled Truth and the Transcendent Reality. The Reality is beyond the range of the understanding; the understanding is called Veiled Truth.... Thus there is never either cessation or existence; the universe neither comes to be nor halts in being. Life's courses, if thou considerest them, are like dreams and as the plantain's branches; in reality there is no distinction between those that are at rest and those that are not at rest. Since then the forms of being are empty, what can be gained, and what lost? who can be honoured or despised, and by whom? Whence should come joy or sorrow? What is sweet, what bitter? What is desire, and where shall this desire in verity be sought? If thou considerest the world of living things, who shall die therein? who shall be born, who is born? who is a kinsman and who a friend, and to whom? Would that my fellow-creatures should understand that all is as the void! They are angered and delighted by their matters of strife and rejoicing; with grief and labour, with despair, with rending and stabbing one another, they wearily pass their days in sin as they seek their own pleasure; they die and fall into hells of long and bitter anguish; they return again and again to happy births after births and grow wonted to joy.... In life are oceans of sorrow, fierce and boundless beyond compare, a scant measure of power, a brief term of years; our years are spent in vain strivings for existence and health, in hunger, faintness, and labour, in sleep, in vexation, in fruitless commerce with fools, and discernment is hard to win; how shall we come to restrain the spirit from its wont of wandering? There, too, the Spirit of Desire is labouring to cast us into deep hells; there evil paths abound, and unbelief can scarce be overcome; it is hard to win j, a brief return, exceeding hard for the Enlightened « to arise to us; the torrent of passion can scarce be stayed. Alas, how sorrow follows on sorrow! Alas, how lamentable is the estate of them that are borne down in the floods of affliction, and in their sore distress see not how sad their plight is, like one who should again and again come forth from the waters of his bath and cast himself into fire, and so in their sore trouble deem themselves to be in happy estate! As thus they live in sport that knows not of age and dissolution, dire afflictions will come upon them, with Death in their forefront. Then when will the day come when I may bring peace to them that are tortured in the fire of sorrow by my ministrations of sweetness born from the rain-clouds of my righteousness, and when I may reverently declare to the souls who imagine a real world that all is void, and righteousness is gathered by looking beyond the Veiled Truth?

(16) “This I have gained today, and that longing I will fulfil. This wealth is mine, and that also shall be mine in future; “That enemy I have slain, and others, too, I will slay. I am the lord of all; I enjoy; I am prosperous, mighty, and happy; “I am rich; I am of high birth. Who else is equal to me? I will offer sacrifice, I will give, I will rejoice.” Thus, deluded by ignorance, Bewildered by many fancies, entangled in the meshes of delusion, addicted to the gratification of lust, they fall into a loathsome hell.

(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) Therefore I must heedfully fulfil my vow; if I labour not this very day, down, down I fall. Numberless are the Enlightened who have passed by in search of all living beings; and through my own fault I have not come into their healing hands. If this day also I shall be as I have been again and again, misery, sickness, death, maiming, dismemberment, and the like will fall to my lot; and when shall I win that most rare boon, the coming of one of the Enlightened, faith, human birth, and fitness to labour in righteousness, a day of health with food and no vexations? Life is a brief instant, and plays us false; the body is like a thing held in precarious tenure. Truly with deeds such as mine have been I shall not again win human birth; and if I win it not, evil awaits me; whence should good come? Since I work not righteousness when I am able, how shall I do it when crazed by the pains of hell? I do no righteous work, and gather sin; the very name of good destiny is lost to me for millions of seons. Therefore the Lord has said that human birth is exceedingly hard to win; hard as for a turtle to pass its neck into the hole of a yoke in the ocean....

(32) The Bodhisattva “Joy in Reality” said: “Reality and non-reality are a duality, (but) he who realizes reality does not even perceive it, still less non-reality. Why? Because reality is invisible to the ordinary eyes and appears only to the eye of wisdom. Thus (realization of) the eye of wisdom, which is neither observant nor unobservant, is initiation into the non-dual Dharma.”

(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?

(5) The darkness of ignorance is: holding that which is unenduring, impure, full of pain, not the Soul, to be eternal, pure, full of joy, the Soul.

(4) For the sake of things unloved and things loved have I sinned these many times; and never have I thought that I must surrender everything and depart. They whom I love not, they whom I love, I myself, shall be no more, naught shall remain. All the things whereof I have feeling shall pass away into a memory; like the vision of a dream, all departs, and is seen no more. The many whom I love or love not pass away while I stand here; only the dire sin wrought for their sake remains before me. I understood not that I was but a chance comer, and through madness, love, or hatred I have wrought many a sin. Unceasingly through night and day the waning of vital force increases; must

(28) A sick Bodhisattva should again reflect: since my illness is neither real nor existing, the illnesses of all living beings are also unreal and non-existent. But while so thinking if he develops a great compassion derived from his love for living beings and from his attachment to this false view, he should (immediately) keep from these feelings. Why is it so? Because a Bodhisattva should wipe out all external causes of troubles (klesa) while developing great compassion. For (this) love and (these) wrong views result from hate of birth and death. If he can keep from this love and these wrong views, he will be free from hatred, and wherever he may be reborn he will not be hindered by love and wrong views. His next life will be free from obstructions and he will be able to expound the Dharma to all living beings and free them from bondage. As the Buddha has said, there is no such thing as untying others when one is still held in bondage for it is possible to untie others only after one is free from bonds.

(7) 'He who has no understanding, who is unmindful and always impure, never reaches that place, but enters into the round of births.'

(6) 'The Hereafter never rises before the eyes of the careless child, deluded by the delusion of wealth. "This is the world," he thinks, "there is no other;"--thus he falls again and again under my sway.'

(2) Vimalakirti said:

“Hey Sariputra, he who searches for the Dharma does not even cling to his body and life, still less to a seat, for the quest of Dharma is not related to (the five aggregates): form (rupa), sensation (vedana), conception (sanjna), discrimination (samskara) and consciousness (vijnana); to the eighteen fields of sense (dhatu: the six organs, their objects and their perceptions); to the twelve entrances (ayatana: the six organs and six sense data that enter for or lead to discrimination); and to the worlds of desire, form and beyond form. Sariputra, a seeker of the Dharma, does not cling to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. A seeker of the Dharma does not hold the view of suffering, of cutting off all the accumulated causes, thereof, to put an end to it by treading the path to nirvana (i.e. the four noble truths). Why is it so? Because the Dharma is beyond all sophistry. For if one says:

‘Because I see suffering, I cut off its accumulated causes to wipe it out by treading the path thereto’, this is mere sophistry and is not the quest of the Dharma.

(21) And then he will laugh at his own former state Saying, " What mattered my experiences when asleep? When I had forgotten my prosperous condition, And knew not that the grief and ills I experienced Were the effect of sleep and illusion and fancy? In like manner this world, which is only a dream. Seems to the sleeper as a thing enduring for ever But when the morn of the last day shall dawn, The sleeper will escape from the cloud of illusion; Laughter will overpower him at his own fancied grieves

(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.”

(8) The Lord Buddha, continuing, addressed Subhuti, saying: “Within these innumerable worlds, every form of sentient life, with their various mental dispositions, are entirely known to the Lord Buddha. And why? Because, what the Lord Buddha referred to as their ‘various mental dispositions,’ are not in reality their ‘various mental dispositions,’ these are merely termed their ‘various mental dispositions.’ And why? Because, Subhuti, dispositions of mind, or modes of thought, whether relating to the past, the present, or the future, are alike unreal and illusory.”

(7) In no place and by naught can the mind be destroyed, for it is unembodied; but from imaginations clinging to the body it suffers with the body's hurt. Discomfiture, rude speech, dishonour, all these things harm not the body; then why art thou wroth, 0 my spirit? Can the ill-will of others towards me touch me in this life or in births to come, that I should mislike it? Haply I may mislike it because it hinders me from gaining alms; but then the alms that I get will vanish here, my guilt will stay with me for ever. Better for me to die this same day than to live long in sin, for however long I stay, the same death-agony awaits me. One man in dreams enjoys a hundred years of bliss, and awakes; another is happy for an hour, and awakes; surely the pleasure of both, when they wake, is alike ended. And so it is at the time of death with the long-lived and the short-lived. Though I may get many gifts, and long enjoy my pleasures, I shall depart empty-handed and naked, as if stripped by robbers. " By my gains I may live to wipe out my sin and do righteousness " — ay, but he who is angry for the sake of gain wipes out his righteousness and does sin. If that for which I live is lost, what profits life itself which is spent wholly in ungodliness?

(271) Not only by discipline and vows, not only by much learning, not by entering into a trance, not by sleeping alone, do I earn the happiness of release which no worldling can know. Bhikshu, be not confident as long as thou hast not attained the extinction of desires.