Cultivating Trust in the Great Vehicle
Introduction

Cultivating Trust in the Great Vehicle unfolds at Vulture Peak Mountain, where the Buddha, surrounded by a great number of bodhisattvas from the human and nonhuman realms and many monks and limitless other beings, gives a discourse on the nature of trust in the Great Vehicle. The teaching is requested by a bodhisattva known as Great Skillful Trust, who requests the Buddha to answer four questions concerning the nature of trust in the Great Vehicle:

Over the course of the sūtra, the Buddha answers all four questions, devoting a separate chapter to each.

It is noteworthy that Great Skillful Trust asks these questions from a beginner’s point of view. At several points the text appeals to those who are still on the “level of devoted engagement,” a level that is said to comprise the first two of the five paths. These are the path of accumulation and the path of preparation, which precede the path of seeing, where one for the first time gains an actual experience of the empty nature of phenomena. Throughout the sūtra, the Buddha’s answers are thus addressed to the concerns of bodhisattvas who have not yet stepped onto the path of seeing and who therefore have not reached the level where nonconceptual insight into the nature of reality has arisen. The message of the sūtra is thus relevant to all followers of the Great Vehicle who have not yet gained the flawless wisdom that lies at its heart. The questions posed by Great Skillful Trust concern the nature and development of an inspired faith and confidence that lead to the unfolding of such wisdom.

In the first chapter, “The Characteristics of Trust,” the Buddha lists eleven attributes that describe the physical and mental state of a bodhisattva who has developed trust in the Great Vehicle. Taken together, they ensure that the bodhisattva will develop all the qualities of a genuine practitioner of the Great Vehicle, in particular the means for gathering the accumulations of merit and wisdom.

In the second chapter, “The Birth of Trust,” the Buddha lists eleven ways to develop trust in the Great Vehicle, which range from connecting with a spiritual teacher to developing renunciation with regard to saṃsāra. By far the largest section of this chapter is the Buddha’s discussion of the third method for developing trust in the Great Vehicle, that of correctly assimilating the teachings into one’s own being beyond a mere intellectual understanding. In this section, the Buddha lists twenty-eight wrong views that a bodhisattva may fall prey to, by misunderstanding the teachings due to the reifying tendency of conceptual thought, and that may thus impede an actual experience of the meaning behind the words.

A similar list of twenty-eight wrong views that bodhisattvas may fall into can be found elsewhere in the Buddhist canon, in the Abhidharma­samuccaya by Asaṅga, the renowned Yogācāra scholar of fourth century India.1 Although the two lists are far from identical, their main themes are nevertheless similar. Both lists summarize various ways in which one might get stuck on the words rather than the meaning and as a result develop a nihilistic metaphysical view of emptiness that construes it as sheer nonexistence. The text warns that such literalistic misinterpretations will prevent one from developing the immense qualities of wisdom that constitute the Great Vehicle.

Cultivating Trust in the Great Vehicle can in this way be seen to provide a scriptural basis for the Indian Yogācāra school’s critique of perceived nihilistic interpretations of the Madhyamaka view associated with the influential Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (ca. second century). Although the Tibetan master Butön Rinchen Drup (bu ston rin chen grub, 1290–1364) noted that the sūtra was adopted by the Yogācāra school, it appears to have had far less impact on Buddhist scholarship than Yogācāra classics such as the Abhidharma­samuccaya and Yogācārabhūmi.2 That said, we can detect in its criticisms of misguided interpretations of Madhyamaka doctrines a strain of polemicism that was famously articulated in such Yogācāra classics. Consider, as example, its criticism of the central Madhyamaka view of no claim or thesis (pratijñā):

In the third chapter, “The Classifications of Trust,” we find a brief discussion that presents a spectrum of different aspects of trust in the Great Vehicle. The Buddha lists a number of recollections and practices of the qualities contained within the Great Vehicle that each produce a distinctive type of trust. Again, the target audience is the novice bodhisattva for whom trust provides a firm basis for developing the higher qualities of the bodhisattva path.

In the fourth and final chapter of the sūtra, “The Benefits of Trust,” the Buddha explains the benefits reaped by a person who develops trust in the Great Vehicle. Trust is here presented as the primary factor that allows the practitioner to develop all the altruistic qualities associated with compassion and wisdom.

At the end of the four main chapters of the sūtra, the Buddha predicts the swift attainment of the qualities of awakening for those who adopt this Dharma teaching. As the Buddha concludes his discourse, the entire world of gods and humans rejoices.

Although Cultivating Trust in the Great Vehicle discusses themes and practices central to the Great Vehicle, it has previously received very little scholarly attention.3 This translation, which is the first rendering into English, was prepared based on the Tibetan translation in the Degé Kangyur in consultation with the Comparative Edition (Tib. dpe bsdur ma) and the Stok Palace Kangyur. There is to our knowledge no extant complete Sanskrit version of this sūtra, and it was also never translated into Chinese. The colophon to the Tibetan translation informs us that the translation was produced by the two Indian preceptors Jinamitra and Dānaśīla, along with the Tibetan editor-translator Yeshé Dé. These three persons were all instrumental figures in the early translation efforts that took place in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The text is also recorded in both the Denkarma4 and Phangthangma5 catalogs of the Tibetan imperial translations, so it would have been translated from Sanskrit into Tibetan no later than the early ninth century, as the Denkarma is thought to have been compiled in 812 ᴄᴇ.