The Prince's Own Mind
The full teaching on mind-attitudes closes with its final six: a broken-horned mind free of imposing power, a great-wind mind unattached to anything, a great boat tirelessly ferrying between shores, a bridge carrying the good friend's own teaching across, a filial son never satisfied merely to have seen a good friend, and a prince who accords with the sovereign's own instruction.
Twenty-Two Minds, Now Complete
「……發折角心，離威勢故；發大風心，無所著故；發大船心，於彼此岸，往返不疲故；發橋梁心，度善知識教故；發孝子心，見善知識，無厭足故；發王子心，順君教故。」
"… raise a broken-horned mind, because it is free of imposing power; raise a great-wind mind, because it is unattached to anything; raise a great-boat mind, because it goes back and forth between this shore and that shore without fatigue; raise a bridge mind, because it carries across the good friend's own teaching; raise a filial son's mind, because upon seeing a good friend, it is never satiated or content; raise a prince's mind, because it accords with the sovereign's own teaching."
Twenty-two distinct "minds" in total, drawing on earth, metal, mountains, animals both noble and lowly, vehicles, and family relations — an unusually wide-ranging catalogue of imagery even by this collection's own standards. Fazang reads the closing pair, filial son and prince, as returning the list to a register of devoted relationship after its middle stretch of endurance-images (servant, laborer, beast of burden), ending the teaching on a note of loyalty rather than mere stamina.
Part 264 Complete — The Mind-Attitudes Teaching Concludes
All twenty-two attitudes of mind are now given in full. Part 265 turns to a further set of paired similes — regarding oneself as a sick person, the good friend as a physician-king, and their teaching as good medicine.
Continue to Part 265 →