The concept of skillful means is central to the understanding of the Buddha’s enlightened deeds and the many scriptures that are revealed contingent to the needs, interests, and mental dispositions of specific types of individuals. According to the Great Vehicle, training in skillful means collectively denotes the first five of the six perfections when integrated with wisdom, the sixth perfection, to form a union of discriminative awareness and means.

The skillful acts of a bodhisattva for the benefit of others.

The concept of skillful means is central to the understanding of the Buddha’s enlightened deeds and the many scriptures that are revealed contingent to the needs, interests, and mental dispositions of specific types of individuals. According to the Mahāyāna, training in skillful means collectively denotes the first five of the six transcendent perfections when integrated with wisdom, the sixth transcendent perfection, to form a union of discriminative awareness and means.

The skillful acts of a bodhisattva for the benefit of others.

One of the ten perfections.

The seventh of the ten perfections, this refers to the skillful acts of a bodhisattva that benefit others and lead to awakening.

Also called “method.”

Means and methods available to realized beings; represented by and refers to the male consort in sexual yoga.

Also refers to the male partner in sexual yoga.

The special methods that enlightened beings use to lead other beings to awakening.

The special methods that enlightened beings use to lead other beings to awakening.

The skillful acts of a bodhisattva for the benefit of others.

Also called “skillful means.”

Method or skillful means. In the context of this text, a method for quelling the suffering of pretas.

The extraordinary skills of the buddhas and advanced bodhisattvas.

The skillful methods of a bodhisattva, enacted for the benefit of others.

The concept of skillful means is central to the understanding of the Buddha’s enlightened deeds and the many scriptures that are revealed contingent to the needs, interests, and mental dispositions of specific types of individuals. According to the Great Vehicle, training in skillful means collectively denotes the first five of the six perfections when integrated with wisdom, the sixth perfection, to form a union of wisdom and means.

The concept of expedient means is central to the understanding of the Buddha’s enlightened deeds and the many scriptures that are revealed contingent to the needs, interests, and mental dispositions of specific types of individuals. According to the Great Vehicle, training in expedient means collectively denotes the first five of the six perfections when integrated with wisdom, the sixth transcendent perfection, to form a union of discriminative awareness and means.

This is the expression in action of the great compassion of the Buddha and the bodhisattvas‍—physical, verbal, and mental. It follows that one empathetically aware of the troubles of living beings would, for his very survival, devise the most potent and efficacious techniques possible to remove those troubles, and the troubles of living beings are removed effectively only when they reach liberation. “Art” was chosen over the usual “method” and “means” because it has a stronger connotation of efficacy in our technological world; also, in Buddhism, liberative art is identified with the extreme of power, energy, and efficacy, as symbolized in the vajra (adamantine scepter): The importance of this term is highlighted in this sūtra by the fact that Vimalakīrti himself is introduced in the chapter entitled “Inconceivable Skill in Liberative Art”; this indicates that he, as a function of the nirmāṇakāya (incarnation-body), just like the Buddha himself, is the very incarnation of liberative art, and every act of his life is therefore a technique for the development and liberation of living beings. The “liberative” part of the translation follows “salvifique” in Lamotte’s phrase “moyens salvifique.”

See “skillful means.”