Perfect Awakening (I)

Buddhacarita, Chapter Fourteen: Perfect Awakening

Having subdued Māra, the bodhisattva's resolve grew firm and his heart entirely at peace; seeking to fathom the ultimate truth fully, he entered into a deep and wondrous meditative absorption.

Every mastery of samādhi presented itself before him in due order; in the first watch of the night, he entered true absorption and recollected his own past lives.

From such-and-such a place, under such-and-such a name, he had come to be born in this one — in just this way, across hundreds of thousands and tens of thousands of lives, he came to know fully every one of his own deaths and births.

Having undergone birth and death in this way, without measure, across every kind of sentient being, he saw that every one of them had, at some time, been his own kin — and a heart of great compassion rose up within him.

Having given rise to this great compassion, he then contemplated how these same beings, circling endlessly through the six realms of rebirth, suffer birth and death without any end at all —

empty and false, without any true solidity, like a plantain tree's hollow trunk, or like a dream, or an illusion. And then, in the middle watch of the night, he attained the pure and heavenly eye.

He beheld every sentient being as clearly as one sees a reflection in a mirror — beings born and dying again and again, whether noble or base, rich or poor.

Following their pure or impure karma, they received in turn a painful or pleasant reward; and he saw that those who had done evil deeds were bound to be born into the evil destinies,

while those who had cultivated good deeds were born among humans or gods. As for those born into the hells, they underwent suffering of countless kinds:

forced to swallow molten copper, their bodies pierced through with iron spears, hurled into cauldrons of boiling water, driven into blazing masses of fire.

Devoured by packs of long-fanged dogs, their very brains pecked out by sharp-taloned birds; fleeing in terror of the flames into a forest, only to have their bodies sliced apart by leaves sharp as swords.

Their bodies cut apart with sharp knives, or hacked and chopped with sharp axes — enduring such extreme suffering and torment, and yet their own karmic actions would not permit them even to die.

Those who had taken pleasure in impure deeds now received this extreme suffering in return; the pleasure they had tasted lasted but a fleeting moment, while the suffering that repaid it stretched on, exceedingly long.

Sowing the seeds of calamity amid laughter and play, they now wailed aloud as they received their punishment — such were the sentient beings of evil karma, when they beheld their own retribution.

Their very breath and pulse would seem to fail them, and, seized with terror, they would collapse and die in a flood of their own blood; and as for those who had created the various karma of the animal realm — this karma, too, differed each in its own particular kind.

At death they fell into the animal realm, taking on every manner of different body, some dying for the sake of their own skin and flesh, their fur, horns, bones, tails, or feathers.

Preying upon and slaughtering one another in turn, even devouring their own kin; bearing heavy loads beneath the yoke, driven on by whip, hook, and goad.

Their wounded bodies streaming with pus and blood, hunger and thirst never once relieved; destroying one another in endless succession, with no freedom of their own at all — whether in the open sky, in the water, or on dry land, there was nowhere at all to flee from death.

Those in whom miserliness and greed had grown to the utmost degree were born instead into the realm of hungry ghosts, their bodies enormous as great mountains, yet their throats no wider than the eye of a needle; hunger and thirst blazed within them like a burning poison, consuming their own bodies from within.

Those who had been miserly and refused to give when asked, or who had obstructed others from giving in charity, were born among these hungry ghosts, where, seeking food, they could never obtain it — and whatever unclean scraps others cast away, the very moment they sought to eat it, would vanish and turn to nothing before them.

Should anyone hear of the bitter retribution that miserliness and greed bring about in this way, let him instead cut his own flesh to give to others, as King Śibi once did.

Or [consider] one born instead into the human realm, whose very body must first dwell within a moving latrine —

every movement there an extreme torment, and the emergence from the womb itself a terror, his soft, tender body touched by the outside world as though slashed by knife or sword.

Bound entirely to the portion allotted by his own past karma, there is no moment at all free from the presence of death; and though one struggles painfully merely to be born, once born, one goes on to endure suffering at length regardless.

Even those reborn in heaven through the power of their own merit find their bodies forever scorched by thirst and craving; and once that merit is exhausted and their life comes to its end, the five signs of decline and death appear before them —

like a tree's blossoms withering, growing dry and lifeless, losing all their former luster; and as they part from their own kin, some remaining and some perishing, no grief or sorrow can hold them together any longer.

Their palace halls stand suddenly empty and hollow, every jeweled attendant having withdrawn far away; they sit or lie upon the bare dust, weeping in longing for what they have lost.

Those left behind grieve at seeing them fall; those who die grieve, in turn, at leaving the living behind. To strive diligently in ascetic practice only in order to obtain the pleasures of heaven — given that such suffering exists there as well, how base and unworthy a thing this craving truly is!

Even what is gained through the greatest of skillful means cannot escape the suffering of parting — alas, whether the life of gods or of men, in the end, there is no real difference between them at all in this.

Cultivating ascetic practice across accumulated ages, forever apart from craving and desire, believing themselves certain to endure forever — and yet even they, in the end, all fall away in just this same manner.

In the hells, beings undergo every manner of suffering; among animals, they prey upon and destroy one another; among hungry ghosts, they are driven by the torment of hunger and thirst; among humans, they are worn down by craving and desire — and though it is said that the gods enjoy their own pleasures, the suffering of parting remains, even there, the very greatest suffering of all.

Born into this world in utter confusion and delusion, there is not a single place of true rest or respite to be found anywhere — alas, this ocean of birth and death, circling on without end, in which sentient beings sink beneath its ceaseless current, adrift, with nothing at all to rely upon!

Having, with this pure heavenly eye, observed the five destinies in this way — empty and false, without any true solidity, like the hollow trunk of a plantain tree, or like foam upon water — he then, in that third watch of the night, entered into a still deeper true absorption.

He contemplated the very nature of the world's own suffering, circling on endlessly, born and grown old and dying again and again, in numbers beyond all counting, obstructed always by the darkness of craving, desire, and delusion, with no knowledge at all of how to find the way out.

With right mindfulness he reflected inwardly: from what does birth and death actually arise?

He determined with certainty that old age and death must be brought about by birth itself — just as, because a person has a body at all, bodily pain necessarily follows after it.

He then contemplated further: what is the cause of birth? And he saw that it comes from the karma of conditioned existence — and with his heavenly eye he observed that this karma of existence is not brought about by Īśvara, the Sovereign God.

It is neither an inherent nature, nor a self, nor yet is it without any cause at all — it is like splitting bamboo: once the first joint is broken open, the rest present no difficulty at all.

Having seen the cause of birth and death, he came, step by step, to see the truth of the matter further still: this karma of existence arises from grasping, just as fire is sustained by fuel.

Grasping has craving as its cause, spreading like a small fire that burns down a whole mountain; and he came to know that craving arises from feeling, which perceives suffering and pleasure and seeks after ease.

Just as hunger and thirst give rise to the seeking of food and drink, so feeling gives rise to craving in just this same way; and every feeling has contact as its cause, from which the three kinds — pain, pleasure, and neutral sensation — all arise.

Just as friction, applied through human effort, produces fire fit for use, so contact arises from the six sense-bases, which exist because of the obstruction of blind ignorance.

The six sense-bases arise from name-and-form, as a sprout grows into stem and leaf; and name-and-form arises from consciousness, as a seed gives rise to sprout and leaf.

Consciousness, in turn, arises from name-and-form, each turning back upon the other with nothing left over — conditioned by consciousness, name-and-form arises; conditioned by name-and-form, consciousness arises.

Just as a person and a boat move forward together, each carrying the other across water and land in turn, so consciousness gives rise to name-and-form, and name-and-form gives rise to the [six] faculties.

The faculties give rise to contact; contact, in turn, gives rise to feeling; feeling gives rise to craving; craving gives rise to grasping.

Grasping gives rise to the karma of existence; existence, in turn, gives rise to birth; birth gives rise to old age and death — and so this wheel turns on, endlessly, without any final end.

Perfect and complete awakening consists precisely in fully realizing this dependent arising of sentient beings — and once this perfect and complete awakening is fixed with certainty, birth is exhausted and old age and death are extinguished.

When existence is extinguished, birth is extinguished; when grasping is extinguished, existence is extinguished; when craving is extinguished, grasping is extinguished; when feeling is extinguished, craving is extinguished.

When contact is extinguished, feeling is extinguished; when the six sense-bases are extinguished, contact is extinguished; and the complete extinguishing of all these sense-bases comes about through the extinguishing of name-and-form.

When consciousness is extinguished, name-and-form is extinguished; when formations are extinguished, consciousness is extinguished; and when ignorance itself is extinguished, formations are extinguished — and with this, the great sage's perfect and complete awakening was accomplished.