The Long Explanation of the Noble Perfection of Wisdom in One Hundred Thousand, Twenty-Five Thousand, and Eighteen Thousand Lines
Introduction

This section provides (1) glosses for each of the words or phrases that set the scene, starting with “Thus did I hear at one time”; (2) glosses for each term in the string of epithets for the “great community of monks,” one of the four branches of the community (monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen) present for the teaching; and (3) glosses for the epithets of the five types of bodhisattvas in the retinue. The explanation of the qualities of the worthy monks provides for a brief overview of the practice and result set forth in the fundamental Buddhist scriptures, and the explanation of the bodhisattvas, based on The Ten Bhūmis, gives a brief overview of the five types of bodhisattva: (1) bodhisattvas with a surpassing intention on the first level, (2) those “who stand in signlessness with effort up to the seventh level, (3) those who effortlessly stand in signlessness… on the eighth level,” (4) bodhisattvas up to the tenth level, and (5) bodhisattvas “obstructed by just a single birth.” It connects the epithets beginning with their “understanding phenomena to be like an illusion,” and so on, with the last of these. There is also a detailed explanation of the four types of dhāraṇī.

This again provides glosses for each word or phrase starting from, “Thereupon the Lord, having himself arranged the lion throne…” The Lord demonstrates miraculous powers of meditative stabilization, miraculous wonder-working powers, and miraculous dharma-illuminating powers. The first is demonstrated by the Lord radiating light, the second with his magical creation of a great tower of flowers and its suspension in the air and so on, and the third with his illuminating the buddhas in different worlds and teaching a gigantic retinue. In the context of the buddhas of the ten directions warning their bodhisattvas traveling to our world that they should “be careful in that buddhafield,” there is a detailed explanation of the five degenerations in Śākyamuni’s buddhafield, that is, in the world in which we live.

Included in this section of the introduction is an exposition of the opening words of the second chapter in all three long sūtras: “When the Lord understood that the world with its celestial beings, Māras and Brahmās, śramaṇas and brahmins, gods, and humans, as well as bodhisattvas, most of them in youthful form, had assembled, he said to venerable Śāriputra…” The great śrāvaka Śāriputra is singled out, rather than a bodhisattva, to make known that “the perfection of wisdom is a shared discourse.” He is singled out even though he is a worthy one, because all worthy ones are finally roused from nirvāṇa to work for the welfare of beings. This occasions a presentation of the single vehicle system explained in The White Lotus of the Good Dharma (Saddharma­puṇḍarīka),31 The Lion’s Roar of Śrīmālādevī (Śrīmālā­devī­siṃha­nāda), The Questions of Sāgaramati (Sāgara­mati­paripṛcchā),32 The Ten Dharmas Sūtra (Daśa­dharmaka­sūtra), and in the Maitreya chapters of the Eighteen Thousand and Twenty-Five Thousand.33

This section glosses the words in the first two paragraphs of the Lord’s immediate response to Śāriputra’s original question in chapter 2 of all three long sūtras. The response, a long list, is broken down into (1) the practice of the nonconceptual perfections, (2) the practice of the dharmas on the side of awakening without the secondary afflictions, (3) the practice without harming that brings beings to maturity, and (4) the practice that brings the buddhadharmas to maturity. The practice of the perfections is accomplished with skillful means; the practice of the dharmas on the side of awakening is accomplished through mastering the śrāvaka realizations; compassion accomplishes the practice of bringing beings to maturity; and wisdom accomplishes the practice of fully developing the buddhadharmas.

This explains the rest of chapter 2 and up to the end of chapter 21 in the Eighteen Thousand, chapter 13 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand.

IV.2.A This section glosses the explanation, in chapter 2 of all three long sūtras, of the goals to which the thought of awakening is directed. It explains in three parts the perfection of wisdom for which bodhisattvas endeavor. By endeavoring at the perfection of wisdom (1) they want to make themselves familiar with the three vehicles and achieve that familiarity, (2) they want and achieve the greatnesses of bodhisattvas, and (3) they want and achieve the greatnesses of buddhas. In the context of explaining the line “want to destroy all residual impressions, connections, and afflictions,” the commentary makes clear how the same practice and the same knowledge in the mindstreams of different beings with different motivations and insights differ. It again connects the different goals set forth from the line “want to enter into the secure state of a bodhisattva” with higher and higher bodhisattva levels, and in the context of the line “want to stand in inner emptiness,” gives a long and detailed explanation of each of the sixteen emptinesses. The end of this section investigates how Śākyamuni could both be without lust and still have the wife Yaśodharā and son Rāhula.

IV.2.B This section explains in detail the passage, at the beginning of chapter 3 in the Eighteen Thousand and in chapter 2 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand, about how bodhisattvas endeavor by “not seeing” any phenomenon, the name of any phenomenon, seeing itself, or anything that “not seeing” sees. It articulates the relationship between the three natures, the conventional and ultimate realities, and the way names and what they refer to are both connected with, but isolated from, the ultimately real. A bodhisattva with such wisdom eclipses the knowledge of even a billion worthy ones like Śāriputra. Still, the wisdom gained from the basic teachings and the wisdom gained from the Perfection of Wisdom ultimately have no intrinsic nature and are the same. That wisdom is special because of the intention, practice, and work, and because of the complete awakening and turning the wheel of the Dharma that are its result.

IV.2.C This section, under the heading “the defining marks of those who endeavor,” explains a passage in chapter 2 of all three long sūtras as first teaching four practices of emptiness woven around eleven defining marks, and then teaching a further sixteen practices of emptiness. The defining mark is always emptiness. Glossing the line, “you cannot say… that they ‘are engaged’ or ‘are not engaged,’ ” the commentary explains the first of the four practices, the practice of form and so on separately, based on Nāgārjuna’s Root Verses on the Middle Way (Mūla­madhyamaka­kārikā), teaching that nothing is produced from itself and so on. The second practice, explaining the line “do not see ‘a confluence of form with feeling,’ ” teaches that form and so on, as a collection that locates a bodhisattva, are empty. The third practice, explaining the line “that emptiness of form is not form,” is to see the defining mark of form and so on as empty; and the fourth, explaining the line “form is itself emptiness, and emptiness is form,” is a practice that sees the totality of dharmas, starting with form, as emptiness. The list of sixteen emptinesses begins with an explanation of the line, “they do not see the practice of the perfection of wisdom as either ‘engaged’ or ‘not engaged’ with form.”

The bodhisattva always practicing these emptinesses is at the eighth level, has gained the forbearance for dharmas that are not produced, and is predicted to full awakening by the buddhas.

IV.2.D Those who endeavor at the practice are subdivided into three types: the supreme who arrive from a buddhafield and go to a buddhafield, the middling who arrive from Tuṣita, and the last who arrive from among humans. These are then divided into the forty-four or forty-five members of the community. Following that, the commentary deals briskly with the detailed explanation of the six clairvoyances and the five eyes, and the remainder of chapter 2 up to the end of chapter 5 in the Eighteen Thousand, all of which in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand is included in chapter 2.

IV.2.E This section is an explanation of chapter 6 in the Eighteen Thousand, chapter 3 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. A bodhisattva, the perfection of wisdom, and awakening ultimately do not exist, but the names are important conventionally because otherwise beings would be deprived of the instructions they need. The Lord, through Subhūti, gives the instructions for making an effort “by using names and conventional terms conventionally,” for making an effort without apprehending beings, for making an effort by not apprehending words for things, and for making an effort when all dharmas cannot be apprehended.

Names for things (their conventional reality) are not other than the ultimate reality of things. The name bodhisattva is not found anywhere. It is “used conventionally as a mere word and conventional term” that is “not produced and does not stop.” Were it produced when the actual thing referred to by the name is produced, it would not be necessary to give it a name, because it would be known automatically. The benefit of such instruction is that it stops the śrāvaka’s attachment to insight, the three doors to liberation, and the perfect analytic understanding of the suchness of dharmas. A bodhisattva avoids all such thought constructions.

The instruction for making an effort without apprehending beings explains the relationship between self and the aggregates and rejects the views of ordinary “cow-herders,” Jains, Vaidikas, Sāṃkhyas, Parivrājakas, Ulūkas, and proponents of Īśvara, as well as the view that the ultimate reality of a bodhisattva is the bodhisattva.

The instruction for making an effort by not apprehending words for things explains “is bodhisattva the word for form?” and so on. The aggregates and the attributes of the aggregates are imaginary names, so they cannot be the bodhisattva.

There is a brief and then a more detailed instruction for making an effort when all dharmas cannot be apprehended. A “bodhisattva” during the course of practice is like the sky that, though earlier clouded over and later cloudless, is just the sky.

IV.2.F The benefits of the endeavor are set forth in chapter 7 in the Eighteen Thousand, chapter 4 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. They include comprehension of the dharmas that have to be comprehended and those that have to be eliminated, perfecting in meditation those that have to be perfected, and directly witnessing those that have to be directly witnessed.

Glossing the line, “Because that thought is no thought because the basic nature of thought is clear light,” the commentary says that “no thought” means no imaginary thought. Thought itself is clear light unsullied by any stains, such as an ordinary person’s feelings of desire and hatred. It says, [4.­488] “Later, even when a buddha, because that thought is separated from the afflictive emotions plucked out of thin air and abides in its natural purity, those stains have absolutely not arisen, and so, like space that is not conjoined with clouds and so on, it is clear light and hence “not disjoined” either.”

IV.2.G This section explains chapters 8 to 10 in the Eighteen Thousand, chapters 5 to 7 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. It subdivides the endeavor into (1) practice free from the two extremes; (2) practice that does not stand; (3) practice that does not fully grasp dharmas, causal signs, or understanding; (4) practice that has made a full investigation; (5) the practice of method, which is to say persevering at eliminating the practice of causal signs and enactments and cultivating the nonpractice of dharmas and causal signs; and (6) practice for quickly fully awakening, which is a training in the meditative stabilizations, training in not apprehending all dharmas, training in the illusion-like, and training in skillful means. The last of these is training in skillful means for the analytic understanding of all dharmas, fulfilling the six perfections, relying on spiritual friends, and shunning bad friends.

In the context of glossing the words “suchness,” “unmistaken suchness,” and so on, this section explains the nine thoroughly established phenomena: the thoroughly established that is indestructible, that is without error, that does not alter, that is the nature of things, that is the state causing all purification dharmas, and that is constant, irreversible, true reality, and beyond the path of logic.

In its explication of the passage “form is empty of form… that emptiness of form is not form, and emptiness is not other than form. Form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form,” there is a very clear explanation of what later Tibetan scholars would call other-emptiness (Tib. gzhan stong). The passage [4.­542], here in a slightly abbreviated form, is:

The commentary says that there is a period when suchness has stains, when dharmas are defiled and purified because of the imaginary, and there is a period when suchness has no stains and the production of all dharmas is nonexistent, but the suchness is the same.

IV.2.H The last of the eight subdivisions of the intermediate teaching finishes the discussion of the Lord’s original statement and comes to an authoritative conclusion in regard to what it means. This section explains chapters 11 to 21 in the Eighteen Thousand, and chapters 8 to 13 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand.

First it is divided into the responses to twenty-eight (or twenty-nine) questions, in a slightly different enumeration than those found in the three long sūtras themselves, in order to conform to the topics and narrators in the sūtra. I have identified the later passages in Bṭ3 that correspond to each response and the corresponding sections in the Eighteen Thousand in the notes to that part of the translation [4.­676–4.­679]. Again, readers should be aware that the order of the responses in the sūtras and the order in Bṭ3 do not correspond exactly.

Bṭ3 begins with an explanation of the first five questions as: (1a) What is the meaning of the word bodhisattva? (1b) What is the meaning of the term great being? (1c) How are they armed with great armor? (2) How have they set out in the Great Vehicle? (3) How do they stand in the Great Vehicle? We have numbered them in this way to try to retain a correspondence between the list of responses and the later passages expanding on each response.

Questions 6 to 10 are the five questions posed by Subhūti: (6) How is it a great vehicle? 7) How have they come to set out in the Great Vehicle? (8) From where will the Great Vehicle go forth? (9) Where will that Great Vehicle stand? (10) Who will go forth in this vehicle?

The first of these questions occasions a detailed explanation of twenty-one sets of purification dharmas, starting with the perfections and emptiness, and ending with the eighteen buddhadharmas and the dhāraṇī doors. It provides an explanation of the twenty emptinesses, a detailed description of “the application of mindfulness to the body alone, in six parts in accord with the śrāvaka system,” and detailed descriptions of the ten powers and eighteen distinct attributes of a buddha, as well as an explanation of dhāraṇī that supplements the earlier explanation given in the introduction section.

It selectively glosses the purifications of the ten bodhisattva levels that are set forth as the response to question seven in chapter 17 in the Eighteen Thousand and chapter 10 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand.

Questions 8 to 10 are in chapter 18 in the Eighteen Thousand and the second part of chapter 10 in the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. Glossing the line, “It will go forth from the three realms and will stand wherever there is knowledge of all aspects,” which is the response to question 8, the commentary says that the Great Vehicle that goes forth beyond saṃsāra and nirvāṇa is ultimately the same as the result. In the context of “name,” “causal sign,” “conventional term,” “communication,” and “designation,” this section gives the helpful explanation that the materiality of a cow is the name; its dewlap, hump, and so on are its causal sign; “the one that has the red calf,” “the one that has the white calf” are “conventional terms”; “bring the cow here and milk it!” is a communication; and all expressions are designations.

Explaining the response to question 9, it says that ultimately the Great Vehicle “will not stand anywhere,” but still it will stand with the mark of not standing, without error.

It clarifies the response to question 10, “Who will go forth?”, with a brief series of judicious glosses.

The responses to the eleventh and twelfth questions from the perspective of the resultant Great Vehicle‍—awakening‍—are found in chapter 19 of the Eighteen Thousand, and chapter 11 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. Thus, the Great Vehicle “surpasses the world,” and “is equal to space.”

Explaining the statements in the response to question 11, the commentary correlates “existent” and “nonexistent” with the imaginary and thoroughly established and says that were the imaginary to be real like it seems to be, nothing would be possible. In the context of listing every category of phenomena, it glosses “speech with sixty special qualities” with a citation from the Tathāgata­guhyaka Sūtra35 and says that this is the “Master’s instruction.”

In explaining the response to question 12, Bṭ3 says that there is a presentation of twenty-one imaginary things, and because those that are presented do not exist in this Great Vehicle, it is like space.

The explanation of the rest of chapter 19 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapter 11 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand is based on three more of Subhūti’s five statements about the Great Vehicle:36 “To illustrate, Lord, just as space has room for infinite, countless beings beyond measure”; “you cannot apprehend the Great Vehicle coming, going, or remaining”; and, “you cannot apprehend a prior limit, cannot apprehend a later limit, and cannot apprehend a middle either.” Readers can know which of the twenty-eight responses these correspond to from the notes to the translation. Bṭ3 enumerates twenty-six subsections for the first of Subhūti’s statements, and says about the second that all phenomena during the result period of the Great Vehicle are unmoving. It says that the third statement is divided into a brief and a detailed section that eliminate the ultimate existence of “time,” “three,” “equal,” and “vehicle.” The detailed section has twenty-six subsections.

The remainder of Subhūti’s twenty-eight questions and the responses are in chapter 20 of the Eighteen Thousand and chapter 12 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand. First are the statements made by Subhūti that are then queried by Śāriputra, and then answered by Subhūti up to the end of the chapter.

This section of Bṭ3 says that chapter 21 of the Eighteen Thousand, and the equivalent chapter 13 in Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand, set out a more detailed presentation of the results of paying attention to the nonconceptual perfection of wisdom, beginning with these questions Śāriputra puts to Subhūti: “How do bodhisattva great beings practicing the perfection of wisdom investigate these dharmas? And, Venerable Subhūti, what is a bodhisattva? What is the perfection of wisdom? What is it to investigate?”

V.1.A This explanation of chapters 22 and 23 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 14 and 15 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand says that a bodhisattva’s perfection of wisdom has an all-knowledge side (the knowledge of śrāvakas) and a knowledge of path aspects side (the knowledge of bodhisattvas). A bodhisattva stands in the perfection of wisdom by knowing where to stand (in the emptiness of dharmas) and where not to stand (in error). Even to stand, in the sense of settle down on or be attached to the true nature of dharmas‍—or even to the true nature of the knowledge of a buddha‍—is an error. So, a bodhisattva stands by not standing. Such instruction does not contradict the ultimate or the conventional. A bodhisattva trains by seeing the ultimate nonduality of all phenomena. So, training in form one trains in the knowledge of a buddha, practicing the perfection of wisdom without thought of increase or decrease. Subhūti can give such a deep explanation of the perfection of wisdom because of the “sustaining power” (adhiṣṭhāna) of the buddha. This plays on the meaning of sustaining power as speech that is (1) on the authority of a tathāgata or through being possessed by a tathāgata, and (2) the sustaining power of emptiness in the sense that emptiness is the subject matter and makes the speech worth listening to. The commentary says that the authority of a tathāgata is an impossibility because of the nonduality of the tathāgata, dharmatā, and tathatā, because there is no object that is known or subject who knows. This section ends with an explanation of why the perfection of wisdom is great, immeasurable, infinite, and limitless.

V.1.B The explanation of chapters 24 to 33 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 16 to 24 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand says that the benefits of the perfection of wisdom are not facing the problems posed by Māra, not dying an untimely death, not meeting with perils and so on, and being protected by the gods.

On the topic of the relative merits gained from worshiping the perfection of wisdom and other objects of worship, Bṭ3 says that more merit is created from taking up this perfection of wisdom than from this billionfold world system being “filled right to the top with the physical remains of tathāgatas,” and that worshiping all the tathāgatas of the ten directions and worshiping the perfection of wisdom is equivalent. There is more merit created from taking up this perfection of wisdom than from “as many world systems as the sand particles in the Gaṅgā River filled right to the top with the physical remains of tathāgatas.” There is more merit created from giving the perfection of wisdom to others than from personally worshiping the perfection of wisdom, and there is more merit created from conveying the meaning of the perfection of wisdom than the words of the physical book.

Having explained the fourteen conceptualizations, Bṭ3 goes on to say that it is only a semblance of the perfection of wisdom when one apprehends causal signs, and that great merit comes from engaging in practice without any apprehending of causal signs.

The perfection of wisdom as a state of mind rejoicing in all goodness up to the highest goodness is the source of even greater merit, since it says that “merit from rejoicing is highest.” This section then investigates how rejoicing without apprehending anything can function, and it says that rejoicing while apprehending anything is like the four errors of thinking that suffering is happiness and so on.

Dedicating or turning over or transforming (pariṇāma) the merits while apprehending causal signs is wrong in four ways: there would be no connection between the rejoicing thought and the dedicating thought; there would be no connection between the apprehending of the entity, the wholesome root, and the bases of meritorious action; there would be no connection between the dedication and that to which the dedication is being made; and there would be no dedication itself. Ultimate dedication is free from these four errors. Here there are nine sections on dedication free of basic immorality, and three comparisons of the merit created from (1) rejoicing in those who have set out on the wholesome action paths and so on; (2) the state of the eight noble beings; and (3) the highest, the bodhisattva.

V.1.C In its explanation of chapters 34 to 36 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 25 to 27 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand, Bṭ3 explains that the first turning of the wheel of Dharma is twelve rounds of teaching that the perfection of wisdom is like form and so on, because of nonproduction, the absence of an intrinsic nature, the absence of an existent thing, and so on. The perfection of wisdom is principal among the six perfections and is found and produced within a bodhisattva who does not settle down on any phenomenon. It then causes the knowledge of a buddha, but without making anything bigger or smaller.

Its explanation of the greatness of the perfection of wisdom leads to an account of what happens to those forsaking the good Dharma, and the fourfold explanation that because there is no saṃsāra and no nirvāṇa the perfection of wisdom is deep and hard to believe in, which sets the scene for the explanation that dharmas are not bound and not freed. They are pure because “defilement and purification do not exist.” Purity is talked about in thirteen ways as deep, as a light and so on, and as unlimited. In this context of an explanation of the bodhisattva’s knowledge of path aspects, Bṭ3 explains attachment and nonattachment (the knowledge of path aspects) and finally the deeper attachment.

V.1.D The explanation in this section again contextualizes references to the perfection of wisdom in chapters 37 and 38 of the Eighteen Thousand and in chapters 28 and 29 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand as being references to a bodhisattva’s knowledge of path aspects. It says that the benefit of purity is the absence of false projections. Having briefly referenced the thousand buddhas and Maitreya, Bṭ3 again explains that the perfection of wisdom is extremely pure and also explains its benefits. It says that the perfection of wisdom does not establish anything because at the time of the final outcome, “it is a thoroughly established phenomenon that does not alter.” There is no false projection of a final outcome or of any of the stages of the basis, the practice, or the result. In explaining the statement that the perfection of wisdom “is a great perfection,” it says that it is a great secret in reference to dharmas, a great secret as awakening, and a great secret as a turning of the wheel of Dharma. In each case, all are ultimately nonexistent. The commentary then provides selected glosses [5.­387–5.­423] of statements from the sūtra, which the Ornament for the Clear Realizations connects with the one hundred and seventy-three aspects motivating a practitioner to practice the perfection of wisdom.

V.1.E In its explanation of chapters 39 to 42 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 30 to 32 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand this section of the commentary describes the knowledge of path practice as the absence of a practice. Passing over a long section in the sūtra, it says that there are three signs of the completion of the perfection of wisdom: not seeing an increase and not seeing a decline, seeing the marks that define the dharmas, and teaching the inconceivable. This section also investigates the meaning of “the last of the five hundreds” and explains some of the works of Māra in the long section on these topics in the three sūtras. It ends with an explanation of the perfection of wisdom as revealing this world in eleven ways. Among the eleven, in explaining the perfection of wisdom as revealing collected thoughts and distracted thoughts, the commentary gives a long and detailed explanation of the different positive and negative states of mind, from both a conventional and ultimate point of view.

V.1.F The explanation of chapters 43 to 45 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 33 to 35 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand begins with the last of the nine ways in which the perfection of wisdom, like a mother, is the revealer of the world, explaining how the mark of all dharmas is no mark. It explains appreciation and gratitude, taking the respective Sanskrit words in their basic and secondary sense. Having passed over the analogies of the boat and so on, the commentary goes on to say that the absence of apprehending anything and the absence of pride in the six perfections indicates the presence of skillful means. Having given an explanation of the meaning of tshu rol (āra) and pha rol (pāra), it explains that those new to the bodhisattva vehicle train by attending on spiritual friends, without forming ideas, and without longing. The commentary goes on to explain the nine qualities of “doers of the difficult” in terms of benefit and happiness, and being a protector, refuge, resting place, final ally, island, leader, and support. It ends with a description of a new bodhisattva who believes in the perfection of wisdom from the ultimate perspective: as isolated from signs of existence and causes, and from an opposing side and antidote.

V.1.G In the first brief section of its explanation of chapters 46 to 50 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 36 to 40 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand the commentary says that those bodhisattvas who believe in this deep perfection of wisdom and first set out for awakening do so with an integrated practice described by the six perfections. This integrated practice is their armor, not connected with a practice of opposing greed and so on with detachment, but as a practice that is cognizant of the emptiness of all dharmas. This section explains meditation or cultivation (bhāvanā) and the opposite of meditation or disintegration (vibhāvanā) and then explains at length true reality and the signs that a bodhisattva’s progress toward awakening has become irreversible. It explains how Subhūti takes after the Lord because in true reality there is no coming or going and they cannot be differentiated. It is the same with the true reality of all dharmas. All dharmas are therefore, in true reality, an undivided unity. Having explained the six ways in which a universe shakes, this section continues with an explanation of true reality and all its synonyms. While explaining the argument between Subhūti and Śāriputra over whether it is hard or not hard to become awakened, it investigates the possible meanings of progress toward awakening being irreversible. It stresses the centrality of a compassionate attitude toward all beings, and then, in the section on irreversible members of the bodhisattva community, it says there are thirty-five signs of irreversibility.

V.2.A This section simply provides the list of Subhūti’s two hundred and seventy-seven questions. We have linked the questions as listed in this text to the passages where they can be seen in the three sūtras. The author of Bṭ3 does not specifically reference each of the questions in explaining the responses, and also passes over some questions without any commentary at all.

V.2.B The explanation of chapters 51 to 55 of the Eighteen Thousand, chapters 41 to 45 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand, follows relatively closely the responses to the first twenty-seven questions. Explaining the deep places‍—true reality and so on‍—Bṭ3 says that form and so on, the defilement and purification dharmas, are superimposed on true reality by foolish ordinary people who imagine as real what is not real. The accumulation of merit and being worthy of praise are not real. It explains the response to question fourteen‍—“How, Lord, when they do so, will bodhisattva great beings become absorbed for the sake of beings in the three meditative stabilizations?”‍— by dealing with the bodhisattva’s mode of cultivating the emptiness, signlessness, and wishlessness meditative stabilizations central to the earliest, most fundamental Buddhist practice. Even awakening is not real in the sense that there is no increase or decrease in true reality. It explains the analogy of the butter lamp to say that awakening is motivated by bodhicitta, the thought of awakening, but neither the first nor the last thought can be shown to produce it. In true reality there is no change.

Even the meditation on emptiness is imaginary, since nothing is lost and nothing gained. Bṭ3 explains the functioning of cause and effect in conventional reality with the analogy of the sameness of a dream and the waking state based on intention. It is the superimposition of the unreal on the real that is the cause of actions that lead to suffering.

All practices are modeled for the sake of others, even practices like compassion and understanding true reality. All the results gained by the practices of those in the three vehicles are modeled, without losing concern for the world. This is what it means to master emptiness. The section ends with an explanation of the responses to questions 18 to 27. It is because of the absence of an intrinsic nature in phenomena that beings can grasp at a falsely imagined “I” and “mine” and get caught in saṃsāra, and by seeing suchness purify error and gain awakening.

V.2.C The explanation of chapters 56 to 63 of the Eighteen Thousand and of chapters 46 to 53 of the Twenty-Five Thousand and One Hundred Thousand passes over glorification, good qualities, and so on as easy to understand. In response to question 28‍—“Lord, in what way will a thought that is like an illusion fully awaken to unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening?”‍—this section gives the first of two explanations of “no notion of duality and no notion of nonduality.” In response to question 29‍—“Given that unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening is extremely isolated, how will there be a realization of the isolated by the isolated?”‍—it gives the second of the two explanations. It explains briefly about those who do what is difficult and a bodhisattva’s course of action, and then it says that the perfection of wisdom is a state without thought construction; it explains how cyclic existence and nirvāṇa are possible in the absence of thought construction; it explains something really worthwhile and something worthless; it explains the phrase “because space is isolated”; and it explains isolation and the benefits of the perfection of wisdom.

Question 30 is not explicitly cited. It is the point of departure for question 31 [5.­1065]: “Lord, given that no phenomenon is apprehended when they have stood in suchness and practiced for suchness, how will they stand in the knowledge of all aspects?”

The commentary passes over the praise of Subhūti, the praise of dwelling in the perfection of wisdom, and so on as easy to understand, and then explains how each of the six perfections is incorporated with all the others; skillful means and the account of the completion of the accumulations; and the wheel-turning emperor illustration, the unprotected woman illustration, the heroic person who heads into battle illustration, the local ruler illustration, the river illustration, the right hand illustration, the taste in the ocean illustration, and the precious wheel illustration. Then again it gives an explanation of the six perfections.

V.2.D The explanation of chapters 64 to 72 of the Eighteen Thousand, chapters 54 to 61 of the Twenty-Five Thousand, and of 54 to 62 of the One Hundred Thousand presents the six perfections from a conventional and an ultimate point of view. In the Ornament for the Clear Realizations, these are described briefly as a serial and a unique single instant practice. Bṭ3 explains the three meanings of buddha, and it explains the meaning of awakening from the point of view of its thoroughly established nature and its imaginary, designated nature. None of the four possibilities‍—that an existent or a nonexistent thing and so on fully awakens‍—are authorized. Clear realization is seeing sameness as neither existent nor nonexistent. No dharma at all brings about any dharma at all, because dharmas are marked by remaining the same. Still, conventionally, for the comprehension of simple folk, this section says that the practice for awakening is in a gradual sequence. The Tathāgata reached awakening having practiced in a state where nothing is apprehended and having awakened to a state where nothing is apprehended. There is no serial practice ultimately because, as an analogy, apprehending and not apprehending a magically produced illusory elephant and so on happens suddenly, not gradually. All the perfections are included in a single state of mind as are all other wholesome dharmas.

V.2.E The explanation of chapter 73 of the Eighteen Thousand, chapter 62 of the Twenty-Five Thousand, and chapter 63 of the One Hundred Thousand begins as a response to Subhūti’s one hundred and ninety-fourth question. Under the general rubric of the four ways of assembling a retinue, the first, giving gifts in the sense of modeling and teaching the qualities of a buddha, leads to an explanation of those qualities not already explained earlier: conflict-free meditative stabilization, knowledge from prayer, and the four total purities. This section explains each of the ten controls and so on, and then says that the major marks and minor signs are presented in order to engender faith in those who take the physical body as the measure of the greatness of a person. It then gives a detailed explanation of some of the major marks and says in passing that the minor signs simply buttress the major ones as indicating that a great person is handsome. The commentary then discusses language (syllables and so on) under the rubric of kind words, the second of the four ways of assembling a retinue.

The remainder of the explanation is again of how the description of the basis, the practice, and the results of practice are based on the ultimate and conventional natures, and of how the conventional description is employed because of compassion for beings.

V.2.F This section contains the explanation of chapters 74 to 82 of the Eighteen Thousand, chapters 63 to 71 of the Twenty-Five Thousand, and chapters 64 to the end of the One Hundred Thousand. It explains the analogy of a magical creature and says that if beings were to know that all dharmas are like a dream, they would be liberated. The section goes on to explain the response to Subhūti’s two hundred and fifteenth question‍—“How should bodhisattva great beings train in the perfection of wisdom?”‍—by explaining that the imaginary dharmas like form and so on are employed in explanation only because ordinary beings would not otherwise understand the dharma-constituent (the ultimate truth). Bṭ3 explains the very limit of reality as the limit of beings, which is to say the unlimited number and ultimate nature of beings. Having explained that a bodhisattva gains awakening just by standing in emptiness, it gives an explanation of the emptiness of a basic nature as unchanging, unlocated, not coming and not going, not perishing, not increasing or decreasing, not located anywhere, and not obstructing anything. It ends the section by going quickly through the rest of the chapters, giving short glosses that contextualize selected statements and say what they mean. Finally, the commentary explains the responses to Subhūti’s last two questions as saying that, yes, even nirvāṇa is magically created, and the comprehension of emptiness is a comprehension that there is nothing made by a practitioner that was not there before‍—even the emptiness of an intrinsic nature is empty of its intrinsic nature.