Four causes that prevent arhats from knowing certain things
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The four causes that prevent arhats from knowing certain things (Tib. མི་ཤེས་པའི་རྒྱུ་བཞི་, Wyl. mi shes pa'i rgyu bzhi) are:
- They lack knowledge about distant locations (Tib. གནས་ཀྱིས་བསྐལ་པས་མི་ཤེས་པ་, Wyl. gnas kyis bskal pas mi shes pa) , as for example when Maudgalyayana did not know that his mother had been reborn in the buddha field called Possessing Light Rays.
- They also lack knowledge about distant times (Tib. དུས་ཀྱིས་བསྐལ་པས་མི་ཤེས་པ་, Wyl. dus kyis bskal pas mi shes pa) , as when Shariputra did not know that the householder Palkyé possessed the seed of liberation.
- Nor do they know the infinity of results that spring from an infinite number of causes.(Tib. རྒྱུ་ཐུག་མེད་ཀྱི་འབྲས་བུ་ཐུག་མེད་མི་ཤེས་པ་, Wyl. rgyu thug med kyi 'bras bu thug med mi shes pa)
- They lack knowledge of the Buddha’s many qualities (Tib. སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་རབ་ཏུ་མང་པོ་མི་ཤེས་པ་, Wyl. sangs rgyas kyi chos rab tu mang po mi shes pa); they do not know his ten powers, four fearlessnesses, eighteen unshared attributes and so on. [1]
Footnotes
- ↑ *Patrul Rinpoche, Preliminary Points To be Explained when Teaching the Buddha's Word or the Treatises, translated by Adam Pearcey.
Alternative Translations
- Four cognitive limitations (Padmakara Translation Group)
Further Reading
- Khenpo Kunpal, The Nectar of Manjushri's Speech, translated by Padmakara Translation Group. Published by Shambhala. ISBN 978-1-59030-439-6, page 16.
Source
RigpaWiki:Four causes that prevent arhats from knowing certain things