The Same Ten Names, Nurtured Deeper

Vairocana Buddha said: "Buddhas of a thousand worlds, you have asked about the ten minds of long nurturing. Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of loving-kindness constantly practices loving-kindness, having already generated its cause of happiness, and, within the wisdom of no-self, enters the corresponding contemplation of phenomena — seeing feeling, perception, formations, consciousness, and form, these great categories of phenomena, as unborn, unabiding, and unceasing, like an illusion, all equally without duality. In this way every practice becomes a turning wheel of the dharma. Its transforming influence reaches everyone, able to give rise to genuine faith not derived from any demonic teaching, and able to let every being attain the fruit of loving-kindness's own happiness — a fruit that is neither ultimately real nor reducible to any fixed good or bad karmic result — and thereby understand the samādhi of emptiness at the very root of one's own true nature.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of compassion: their compassion is itself empty, without any fixed mark. Taking compassion as the very condition for practicing the path, they dissolve all suffering in themselves, and give rise to genuine understanding amid the immeasurable suffering of every being. Not clinging to any condition for killing, any teaching that would justify killing, or any notion of a fixed self, they constantly refrain from killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, so that not a single being is ever disturbed by them. One who has given rise to the bodhi-mind sees the true reality of every phenomenon within emptiness, gives rise to a mind of path-wisdom amid the conduct proper to their own spiritual lineage, and bestows the highest wisdom of happiness upon close relations, distant relations, and hostile beings alike across all three grades of relationship, bringing happiness even to the ninefold gradations of the most hostile conditions. When the fruit of emptiness itself becomes manifest, oneself and every other being stand equal, and this single happiness gives rise to great compassion.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of joy: delighting in joy at the very moment of the unborn mind, the very substance and marks of one's own spiritual lineage and path-wisdom are themselves empty of any fixed nature, and this joyful mind holds nothing as its own possession. Moving through the causes and effects of past, present, and future without accumulating anything fixed, and having accomplished the contemplation that every existing thing enters emptiness, one holds this same joy equally toward every being — arising from emptiness to enter the path, renouncing companions of unwholesome influence, and seeking out genuinely good spiritual friends who reveal the good path to oneself, so that all beings may enter the Buddha's own household. Constantly giving rise to joyful delight within the teaching itself and entering the very rank of the dharma, one further leads these same beings into genuine faith, and rejoices at their leaving false views behind and turning their backs on the suffering of the six destinies.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of giving up: constantly giving rise to this mind of giving up, within the uncreated, markless dharma of emptiness, like empty space itself, they hold good and bad, seen and unseen, wrongdoing and blessing, all in one and the same even regard. Neither a fixed person nor a fixed notion of what belongs to oneself, and since the true substance of self and other alike cannot actually be found, this is called great giving-up. Even one's own flesh, hands, feet, sons and daughters, and kingdoms and cities are all given up, like an illusion, like flowing water, like the flame of a lamp — and, with no mind of arising attached to any of it, one constantly cultivates this same giving-up.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of giving: able to extend this mind of giving to every being, through giving of the body, giving of speech, giving of the mind, giving of wealth, and giving of the dharma. Teaching every being, one's inner body and outer body, kingdoms, cities, sons and daughters, and fields and dwellings are all held in the same suchness, down to and including having no thought at all attached to any possession. Receiver and giver, whether considered as inner or outer, neither truly combine nor truly separate. Practicing this transformation without any grasping mind, penetrating both its underlying principle and its actual practice, every mark of it now stands directly present.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of kind speech: entering the samādhi of loving speech at the very root of their own true nature, they speak the ultimate truth's own dharma-words and meaning-words. Every truthful word alike accords with this same single speech, harmonizing the minds of every being so that no anger and no contention remains, since the wisdom of emptiness underlying every phenomenon has no fixed condition to fight over. Constantly giving rise to a loving mind, their conduct accords with the Buddha's own intention, and equally accords with every other being. Teaching every being with the noble speech of the true dharma, they constantly practice with a mind of suchness, and thereby give rise to wholesome roots.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of benefiting: at the very moment of this benefiting mind, one broadly practices the path of wisdom through the substance of genuine wisdom, gathering every luminous dharma-gate, and gathering the seven kinds of contemplative wealth. For the sake of another person's genuine benefit, one takes up body and life itself and enters the samādhi of benefiting, manifesting every kind of body, every kind of speech, and every kind of mind, thereby shaking the whole of every great world. In everything done and everything undertaken, others come to gain benefit and happiness within the seed of the dharma, the seed of emptiness, and the seed of the path. Manifesting a form within any of the six destinies, one is untroubled even by immeasurable suffering and hardship there, taking only the benefiting of others as one's own genuine gain.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of working alongside: through the wisdom of the path's own nature, one is equally empty; within the dharma of the unborn, through the wisdom of no-self, one equally arises; through the emptiness beyond duality, one shares the very same underlying ground with every being. Every phenomenon, in its suchness, constantly arises, constantly abides, and constantly ceases, and the affairs of the world continue to flow on in immeasurable succession — yet one is able to manifest immeasurable forms, bodies, and mental activities, entering every single circumstance of the six destinies equally alongside those within them. Being equally empty, equally unborn, and equally without any fixed self or possession, one divides and disperses one's own form accordingly, and thereby enters the samādhi of working alongside all phenomena.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of emptiness: proceeding further from the mind of concentration, through contemplative wisdom, one realizes emptiness, each thought resting on a still condition, remaining unmoved within whatever belongs to a fixed self, the realm of consciousness, or the realm of form. Moving through every manner of arising and ceasing, whether in accordance with or against the ordinary way of things, one constantly enters a hundred samādhis and the ten branches of dhyāna, and, through the wisdom of a single thought, sees clearly that every notion of self and other, whether reckoned as inner or outer, and every seed of every being, neither truly comes together nor truly scatters apart — nothing here can actually be found as a genuine, formed, active thing at all.

Disciples of the Buddha, one who has the mind of wisdom: giving rise to a wisdom that clearly sees the bondage of every false view and every affliction, one finds no fixed, determinate nature anywhere in them, according with the patient acceptance of emptiness shared equally by all things. This wisdom is not the five aggregates, not the eighteen elements, not the twelve sense-fields, not any fixed being, not a single fixed self, not cause and effect, and not confined to any of the three times. The very nature of this wisdom gives rise to a single, unwavering flame of light, seeing with total clarity into what is empty, without grasping at anything received. This wisdom's own skillful means gives rise to the mind of long nurturing itself, and this mind enters the very path that gives rise to emptiness, bringing forth the unborn mind. This is explained at length above, in the chapter of the Thousand Ocean-Wisdom Kings, on the hundred dharma-gates of illumination of the mind."