Five Obstructions Cleared Away
Jeweled Eye's teaching on the mind-city closes with twelve further instructions — opening its gate, penetrating it, knowing it to be like an illusion — before naming, directly, five specific obstructions this whole practice clears away: to seeing a buddha, to hearing the Dharma, to making offerings, to gathering in sentient beings, and to purifying a buddha-land.
Twelve More Instructions for the Mind's Own City
「應蓋心城，以法普覆障不善故；應進心城，無量大悲救一切眾生故；應開心城門，正念一切三世佛故；應達心城，悉知諸佛轉正法輪、修多羅法門因緣起故；應知心城道，開示顯現一切智道故；應持心城，具三世佛諸願海故；應知心城力，長養法界功德力故；應放心城，普照光明，知一切眾生諸根、欲性、結業、習氣、諸垢淨故；應知心城自在力，攝取一切諸法界故；應瑩心城，住佛念故；應知心城實相，了達諸法無實性故；應知心城如幻，入一切智正法城故。」
"You should roof over the mind's own city, because the Dharma universally covers over and obstructs the unwholesome; you should advance the mind's own city, because boundless great compassion rescues every sentient being; you should open the gate of the mind's own city, because one rightly recollects every buddha of the three times; you should penetrate the mind's own city, because one fully knows every buddha's own turning of the true Dharma-wheel and the causes and conditions from which every sūtra Dharma-gate arises; you should know the path of the mind's own city, because it reveals and manifests the path of omniscience; you should uphold the mind's own city, because it is endowed with the whole ocean of vows of the buddhas of the three times; you should know the power of the mind's own city, because it nurtures the power of merit of the Dharma-realm; you should release the mind's own city, universally sending forth light, because one knows every sentient being's own faculties, desiring nature, fetters and karma, habitual tendencies, and every defilement and purity; you should know the mind's own city's own sovereign power, because it gathers in the whole Dharma-realm; you should polish the mind's own city, because one abides in mindfulness of the buddha; you should know the mind's own city's own true mark, because one thoroughly understands that every dharma has no true, fixed nature; you should know the mind's own city to be like an illusion, because one enters the true Dharma-city of omniscience."
The full twenty-four-fold teaching closes on a deliberate inversion of everything that came before: after twenty-two instructions to guard, adorn, brighten, and fortify the mind's own city, the final instruction is to know that this same city is "like an illusion" — the fortification itself ultimately without fixed, real substance, entered only by first understanding that every dharma lacks any true nature of its own.
Five Obstructions, and a Mind Free of Every One
「菩薩摩訶薩若如是知諸心城者，則能積集一切善根，何以故？蠲除無量諸障礙故。所謂：見佛障、聞法障、供養佛障、攝眾生障、淨佛剎障。佛子！菩薩摩訶薩若有如是無障礙心，以少方便，能見一切諸善知識，究竟成就一切種智。」
"If a bodhisattva-mahāsattva knows the mind's own city in this way, he is thereby able to accumulate every root of goodness. Why is this so? Because it eliminates boundless obstructions. Namely: the obstruction of seeing a buddha, the obstruction of hearing the Dharma, the obstruction of making offerings to a buddha, the obstruction of gathering in sentient beings, and the obstruction of purifying a buddha-land. Child of the Buddha, if a bodhisattva-mahāsattva has a mind free of obstruction such as this, then, with but little skillful means, he is able to behold every good and wise friend, and, reaching the very end, accomplish omniscience."
Jeweled Eye's own teaching answers, indirectly, the very question Sudhana raised in his own opening reflection — how can anyone possibly behold a good and wise friend whose true body is beyond ordinary sight? Her answer is not a technique for seeing more sharply, but for removing what blocks sight in the first place: once the five named obstructions are cleared from the mind's own city, "even a little skillful means" becomes sufficient. The difficulty was never distance or subtlety; it was obstruction, and obstruction can be cleared.
Part 190 In Progress
Jeweled Eye's whole teaching is now complete. Part 191 turns to a second deva, Dharma, Sublime Virtue, who praises Māyā from the sky and sends forth a network of light that grants Sudhana ten named, purified eyes.
Continue to Part 191 →