The Root Text The Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment
The Root Text - The Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment
(Sanskrit, Bodhipathapradipam)
By Atisha Dipamkarashrijnana (982-1054)
Homage to the Bodhisattva, the youthful Manjushri.
1 I pay homage with great respect
To the Conquerors of the three times,
To their teaching and to those who aspire to virtue.
Urged by the good disciple Jangchup Wö
I shall illuminate the lampFor the path to enlightenment.
2 Understand there are three kinds of persons Because of their small, middling and supreme capacities. I shall write clearly distinguishing Their individual characteristics.
3 Know that those who by whatever means Seek for themselves no more
Than the pleasures of cyclic existence
Are persons of the least capacity
4 Those who seek peace for themselves alone,
Turning away from worldly pleasures And avoiding destructive actions Are said to be of middling capacity.
5 Those who, through their personal suffering,
Truly want to end completely All the suffering of others Are persons of supreme capacity.
6 For those excellent living beings, Who desire supreme enlightenment, I shall explain the perfect methods Taught by the spiritual teachers.
7 Facing paintings, statues and so forth Of the completely enlightened one,
Reliquaries and the excellent teaching,
Offer flowers, incense—whatever you have.
8 With the seven-part offering
From the [[[Prayer]] of] Noble Conduct,
With the thought never to turn back
Till you gain ultimate enlightenment,
9 And with strong faith in the Three Jewels, Kneeling with one knee on the ground And your hands pressed together,
First of all take refuge three times.
10 Next, beginning with an attitude Of love for all living creatures,
Consider beings, excluding none, Suffering in the three bad rebirths, Suffering birth, death and so forth.
11 Then, since you want to free these beings From the suffering of pain,
From suffering and the cause of suffering, Arouse immutably the resolve To attain enlightenment.
12 The qualities of developing Such an aspiration are
Fully explained by Maitreya In the Array of Trunks Sutra.
13 Having learned about the infinite benefits Of the intention to gain full enlightenment
By reading this sutra or listening to a teacher, Arouse it repeatedly to make it steadfast.
14 The Sutra Requested by Viradatta Fully explains the merit therein. At this point, in summary,
I will cite just three verses.
15 If it possessed physical form, The merit of the altruistic intention Would completely fill the whole of space And exceed even that.
16 If someone were to fill with jewels As many Buddha fields as there are grains
Of sand in the Ganges
To offer to the Protector of the World,
17 This would be surpassed by
The gift of folding one's hands And inclining one's mind to enlightenment, For such is limitless.
18 Having developed the aspiration for enlightenment Constantly enhance it through concerted effort. To remember it in this and also in other lives, Keep the precepts properly as explained.
19 Without the vow of the engaged intention, Perfect aspiration will not grow.
Make effort definitely to take it,
Since you want the wish for enlightenment to grow.
20 Those who maintain any of the seven kinds
Of individual liberation vow
Have the ideal [prerequisite] for The Bodhisattva vow, not others.
21 The Tathagata spoke of seven kinds Of individual liberation vow.
The best of these is glorious pure conduct, Said to be the vow of a fully ordained person.
22 According to the ritual described in The chapter on discipline in the Bodhisattva Stages,
Take the vow from a good
And well-qualified spiritual teacher.
23 Understand that a good spiritual teacher
Is one skilled in the vow ceremony,
Who lives by the vow and has
The confidence and compassion to bestow it.
24 However, in case you try but cannot
Find such a spiritual teacher,
I shall explain another
Correct procedure for taking the vow.
25 I shall write here very clearly, as explained In the Ornament of Manjushri's Buddha Land Sutra,
How, long ago, when Manjushri was Ambaraja,
He aroused the intention to become enlightened.
26 "In the presence of the protectors, I arouse the intention to gain full enlightenment. I invite all beings as my guests
And shall free them from cyclic existence.
27 "From this moment onwards
Until I attain enlightenment, I shall not harbor harmful thoughts, Anger, avarice or envy.
28 "I shall cultivate pure conduct, Give up wrong-doing and desire And with joy in the vow of discipline Train myself to follow the Buddhas.
29 "I shall not be eager to reach Enlightenment in the quickest way, But shall stay behind till the very end, For the sake of a single being.
30 "I shall purify limitless
Inconceivable lands And remain in the ten directions For all those who call my name.
31 "I shall purify all my bodily And my verbal forms of activity.
My mental activities, too, I shall purify
And do nothing that is non-virtuous."
32 When those observing the vow
Of the active altruistic intention have trained well
In the three forms of discipline, their respect For these three forms of discipline grows, Which causes purity of body, speech and mind.
33 Therefore, through effort in the vow made by Bodhisattvas for pure, full enlightenment, The collections for complete enlightenment Will be thoroughly accomplished.
34 All Buddhas say the cause for the completion
Of the collections, whose nature is Merit and exalted wisdom,
Is the development of higher perception.
35 Just as a bird with undeveloped
Wings cannot fly in the sky,
Those without the power of higher perception Cannot work for the good of living beings.
36 The merit gained in a single day By one who possess higher perception
Cannot be gained even in a hundred lifetimes By one without such higher perception.
37 Those who want swiftly to complete The collections for full enlightenment Will accomplish higher perception Through effort, not through laziness.
38 Without the attainment of calm abiding, Higher perception will not occur. Therefore make repeated effort To accomplish calm abiding.
39 While the conditions for calm abiding Are incomplete, meditative stabilization Will not be accomplished, even if one meditates Strenuously for thousands of years.
40 Thus maintaining well the conditions mentioned in the Collection of Meditative Stabilization Chapter, place the mind on any one Virtuous focal object.
41 When the practitioner has gained calm abiding, Higher perception will also be gained, But without practice of the perfection of wisdom, The obstructions will not come to an end.
42 Thus, to eliminate all obstructions To liberation and omniscience, the practitioner should continually cultivate The perfection of wisdom of skillful means.
43 Wisdom without skillful means And skillful means, too, without wisdom Are referred to as bondage.
Therefore do not give up either.
44 To eliminate doubts concerning What is called wisdom and what skillful means, I shall make clear the difference Between skillful means and wisdom.
45 Apart from the perfection of wisdom, All virtuous practices such as The perfection of giving are described As skillful means by the Victorious Ones.
46 Whoever, under the influence of familiarity
With skillful means, cultivates wisdom Will quickly attain enlightenment—
Not just by meditating on selflessness.
47 Understanding emptiness of inherent existence Through realizing that the aggregates, constituents And sources are not produced Is described as wisdom.
48 Something existent cannot be produced, Nor something non-existent, like a sky flower. These errors are both absurd and thus Both of the two will not occur either.
49 A thing is not produced from itself, Nor from another, also not from both, Nor causelessly either, thus it does not Exist inherently by way of its own entity.
50 Moreover, when all phenomena are examined As to whether they are one or many,
They are not seen to exist by way of their own entity, And thus are ascertained as not inherently existent.
51 The reasoning of the Seventy Stanzas on Emptiness,
The Treatise on the Middle Way and so forth Explain that the nature of all things Is established as emptiness.
52 Sincere there are a great many passages, I have not cited them here, But have explained just their conclusions For the purpose of meditation.
53 Thus, whatever is meditation
On selfessness, in that it does not observe An inherent nature of phenomena, Is the cultivation of wisdom.
54 Just as wisdom does not see An inherent nature in phenomena,
Having analyzed wisdom itself by reasoning, Non-conceptually meditate on that.
55 The nature of this worldly existence, Which has come from conceptualization,
Is conceptuality. Thus the elimination of Conceptuality is the highest state of nirvana.
56 The great ignorance of conceptuality Makes us fall into the ocean of cyclic existence.
Resting in non-conceptual stabilization, Space-like non-conceptuality manifests clearly.
57 When Bodhisattvas non-conceptually contemplate
This excellent teaching, they will transcend Conceptuality, so hard to overcome,
And eventually reach the non-conceptual state.
58 Having ascertained through scripture And through reasoning that phenomena Are not produced nor inherently existent, Meditate without conceptuality.
59 Having thus meditated on suchness, Eventually, after reaching "heat" and so forth, The "very joyful" and the others are attained
And, before long, the enlightened state of Buddhahood.
60 If you wish to create with ease The collections for enlightenment Through activities of pacification, increase and so forth, gained by the power of mantra,
61 And also through the force of the eight And other great attainments like the "good pot"—
If you want to practice secret mantra,
As explained in the action and performance tantras,
62 Then, to receive the preceptor initiation, You must please an excellent spiritual teacher Through service, valuable gifts and the like As well as through obedience.
63 Through the full bestowing of the preceptor initiation,
By a spiritual teacher who is pleased, You are purified of all wrong-doing
And become fit to gain powerful attainments.
64 Because the Great Tantra of the Primordial Buddha Forbids it emphatically,
Those observing pure conduct should not Take the secret and wisdom initiations.
65 If those observing the austere practice of pure conduct
Were to hold these initiations, Their vow of austerity would be impaired Through doing that which is proscribed.
66 This creates transgressions which are a defeat For those observing discipline.
Since they are certain to fall to a bad rebirth, They will never gain accomplishments.
67 There is no fault if one who has received The preceptor initiation and has knowledge
Of suchness listens to or explains the tantras And performs burnt offering rituals, Or makes offering of gifts and so forth.
68 I, the Elder Dipamkarashri, having seen it Explained in sutra and in other teachings, have made this concise explanation At the request of Jangchup Wö.
This concludes the Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment by the Acharya Dipamkarashrijnana. It was translated, revised and finalized by the eminent Indian abbot himself and by the great reviser, translator and fully ordained monk Geway Lodrö. This teaching was written in the temple of Tholing in Zhang Zhung.
Translated by Ruth Sonam, Dharamsala, January 1997.
The Seven-part Practice from The King of Prayers, The Prayer of Noble Conduct
1 I pay homage with body, speech, and mind To all Buddhas, past, present and future,
To all those lions amongst humans, as many As there are in the worlds of the ten directions.
2 Through the power of this prayer of noble conduct, In my mind's eye I see all those Victorious Ones. With as many bodies as there are atoms in the worlds, I bow to them all, the Victorious Ones.
3 On every atom, amidst Bodhisattvas, Are as many Buddhas as there are atoms, And similarly I imagine the whole Sphere of phenomena filled with Buddhas.
4 With an inexhaustible ocean of praise,
Through oceans of sound made with the organs of speech,
I speak of the qualities of the Victorious And praise all those who have gone to bliss.
5 With the finest flowers and finest garlands,
With the sweetest music, best unguents and best parasols, With the best butterlamps and the finest incense, I make offerings to all those Victorious Ones.
6 With fine clothes and the best fragrances,
Aromatic powders heaped high as the kind of mountains, All arranged in the most excellent fashion, I make offerings to hose Victorious Ones.
7 I imagine giving all the Victorious Ones The most extensive and unsurpassable offerings. Through the power of faith in noble conduct I blow and make offerings to all Victorious Ones.
8 Whatever wrong actions I have created With my body, my speech and my mind, Driven by desire, anger and confusion, Each of these I openly acknowledge.
9 I rejoice in the merit of the Victorious Ones And of Bodhisattvas in the ten directions, Of Solitary Realizers, trainees and the perfected And in that of all living beings.
10 I urge those protectors who have just gained Buddhahood—enlightenment without obstruction, Who are lamps for the worlds in the ten directions, To turn the unsurpassable wheel of the teachings.
11 With folded hands I request those who wish To display the passing into parinirvana, To remain for the benefit and joy of living beings For as many aeons as the worlds have atoms.
12 I dedicate the slight merit I have created Through reverence, offerings and confession,
Through rejoicing, exhorting and through requesting, To the attainment of highest enlightenment.
Translated by Ruth Sonam, Dharamsala, January 1997.
The Seven-part Practice, from The King of Prayers, The Prayer of Noble Conduct
Tibetan Root Text
The Lamp for the Path to Enlightenment Byang chub lam gyi sgron ma
By Atisha Dipamkarashrijnana (982-1054)
