Prajnal Paramita Course, Lecture 1, 9, 1879. There are various ways to study this big sutra, and probably the best thing to do is to study it in various ways. I don't know which one we should start with or which one we should do most of, Tonight, I'd like to give you some ideas of different ways to study it, some of which you already know about. And then you and I can think about which way we'd like to study most. Also, this class is offered... No, just this one quarter course, I didn't ask you for a year commitment or anything like that.

[01:08]

Because I don't know if you want to study for a year, but as you know, it's a very large scripture so that even if we just read through it, it would take a long time. Not to mention if we stop and talk about the various levels of possible teachings that are going on simultaneously. So the course could easily go for a year and more. And I'm just going to play it by ear and start this quarter off and see what happens at the end of the quarter, what we've learned. So as you may know already, this sutra is, in a sense, the sutra is the, as far as expansiveness goes or elaboration goes, this sutra is the culmination in the elaboration of the Prajnaparamita literature.

[02:23]

I wouldn't say that it's the climax or the culmination in the general sense because in some senses you could say the Heart Sutra is the culmination. As far as the elaboration of the teaching of the Prajnaparamita, this sutra has it all. Now there are also, as you may know, in addition to this version, which has 25,000 lines, there are also 100,000 line versions and 125,000 line versions. But these other versions do not add significantly to what is already in this version. but rather are mostly repeats. But this version adds lots of new things to the very famous and early version in 8,000 lines. So you may know this 8,000 line version is the earliest of the project, called .

[03:33]

This is the earliest one. And this one, it's also translated by Professor . And this would be a fine suture to study. But because we're reading this large suture, which as you see from your bibliography there, or your reading list, is called , which literally means 25,000 lines. . Mimshati is 20.

[04:39]

Sahashika is 1,000. 25,000. And this is 8. 8,000. Maybe it's in this print. Down below it says, So this sutra that we're proposing to study now is a sutra which has lots more material in it than the 8,000 line does. It has teachings which are not found in the 8,000 line version. The 8,000 line version is written before the beginning of the Christian era. This sutra, however, is probably written in the second century A.D.

[05:43]

and written over a long period of time. So it's written after the Lotus Sutra. So the feeling of the Lotus Sutra you can find somewhat absorbed into this sutra. Feelings of the Lotus Sutra which you do not find, for example, in 8,000 lines. In particular, this sutra has much more Abhidharmic material in it than the 8,000 lines does. Now the Heart Sutra, as you may know, is almost nothing but Abhidharma teaching in a very condensed form. Whereas the Large Sutra gives the Abhidharma teaching in rather detailed form and

[06:52]

goes far beyond the simple description in the Heart Sutra, but then gives things a twist or the final turn which makes it go beyond the Abhidharma. As you know, the teaching of the Abhidharma is the teaching of prajna also. So the meaning of these sutras is, in a sense, going beyond the prajna of the Abhidharma. So, Abhidhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dhikha-dh or the transcending of the Abhidharma.

[07:53]

And as you may know also, the Prajnaparamya literature is said to be primarily directed to Abhidharma masters. It's given primarily as an antidote to the Abhidharma, an antidote to those who may be established in the Abhidharma, or established in the stage of Abhidharma knowledge, for Abhidharma wisdom. And this sutra, this large sutra, is very easy to see that's what's being done. Almost every page you can see that that's what's happening. So that's why I suggested that it's good to have some Abhidharma background However, I don't think it's absolutely necessary since we will explain in many cases how it is that the Abhidharma is involved and what the Abhidharma teaching is and how the sutra goes beyond it.

[09:09]

So the sutra is a follow-up of the Abhidharma and also teaches the Abhidharma in detail. So one way to study the sutra would be for us just to read it, to start the first page and start reading through. Another way to study the sutra would be to study what we just read, not start in the beginning of the sutra, but to study what we just read yesterday or what we will read on Friday. Or perhaps we could spend half the class reading what we just read and nurse half the class reading what we will read. Or we could spend all the time studying what we did read, or all the time studying what we will read.

[10:19]

Or we could spend part of the time studying what we read, part of the time studying what we will read, and part of the time just starting from the beginning of the sutra and reading through. Or we could spend not so much time necessarily reading the text even, But I'll leave that to you and spend a lot of our time in class looking at the text from the point of view of the commentaries. And the commentarial literature, the structure of the commentarial literature is extremely complex. There's a vast commentarial network based on the sutra. However, Zen Center is not so scholarly that I think we need to study all that, but just give you some taste of it, and also some taste of it in the sense of the overview of the commentarial tradition, and some taste of it in the sense of actually looking at some of the commentaries.

[11:26]

And it turns out that, in many ways, the historically most important commentaries are also quite interesting. In particular, the commentaries that I think are most accessible for us, and I can see ways to use them, are we start with the sutra. And in terms of commentary, there's two main commentaries that I'd like to consult. One is called the, it's called the, what has various names, one of its names is Prajnaparamita, called Maha Prajnaparamita Nirdesha.

[12:36]

It's also called the Maha Parinirvana Vritti. It's also called the maha-paramivana-shastra. And in Chinese it's called da-ji-do-vi-lip. Da-ji-do-vi-lip. You may see this referred to this

[13:57]

This shastra, this commentary, referred to by these different names in Sanskrit. But in Russian Chinese, they usually call it . All of the listeners that you get are all fellows with . There are other Prajnapramita shastras or vrittis, but when they say Mahaprajnapramita shastra, they usually bring the commentary on this large sutra. This commentary is attributed to, it's said on it, and it only exists in Chinese. It says it's written by Nagarajanaju. And the Nagarajanaju now is founder of the Maidanaka School. And the Maidanaka School's root text is called the Root

[14:58]

verses on the middle way. And those little root verses on the middle way, what primarily is being done is various Abhidhamic inches are being destroyed. It's called the Mula Mahjami Karkarikat. It was written by Nagarjuna. He also wrote two other ones, two other important commentaries. The commentary, actually this is not a commentary on a sutra. It's an independent set of verses where it takes various archivic teachings and smashes them. Where this commentary is actually commentary on the text and follows the text right through.

[15:58]

this commentary is said to be translated by Kumara Jeeva around 400 maybe. Kumara Jeeva we'll talk about him more later but anyway for now let me say that Kumara Jeeva It's said to have translated this, but he may not even have translated it. But if you look at this text, you find out that there's lots of stuff in this text that obviously Nagarjuna never had anything to do with. For example, Nagarjuna did not write what some Chinese people asked for Maharajiva while he was talking about this. So in this commentary, you find dialogues between Chinese people in the audience and the speaker. an emperor's appearance. So, even if Kumarajiva was translating this from Sanskrit, it has considerable additions.

[17:13]

And very likely, looking at the style of it, it seemed much more like what Kumarajiva was like than what Nagarjuna was like. So in some sense, we try to understand that this is actually a work composed by Kumarajiva, central Asian Buddhist monk who studied in China, who studied in India, and who went to China, and was the head of the Great Transformation Bureau, and this is one of his main texts that he translated. But nonetheless, he attributed it to Nagarjuna. Maharajiva was trained in Abhidharma, in Sarvastava and Abhidharma in India, and he later converted to this Mahdamukha school. So his bent is the bent of a person who was trained in Abhidharma and then transcended Abhidharma through the study of the Madhyamaka teaching. So he's a perfect example of the sort of intended process of this sutra.

[18:19]

Being first well trained in the limited wisdom of the Abhidharma and then transcending through the Madhyamaka. And this commentary details this liberation. As he reads this sutra, he sees the Abhidharma teaching. He explains the Abhidharma teaching, and then he goes beyond it in the commentary. So this sutra, this commentary on the sutra gives a lot of Abhidharma and Mahajama teaching. The other main commentary is called, as you see on here, Adisamaya Lankara is quite a different point of view from the previous commentary.

[19:19]

Its point of view is said to be more that of the Yogacara school of Buddhism, as opposed to this one, which is more the Mahajamika teaching. However, if we go further, we must say that it's Yogacara, but it's also actually not just Yogacara, but Yogacara Mahajamika. It's a Mahajamika version of Yogacara. So it's not pure Yogacara. Remember, Mahajamika just means middle way. So it's a middle way of Yodhichara. Who wrote this? We can talk about it later. Another very important commentary, which is related to this,

[20:32]

He is called aloka. In a sentence, this by word abbreviated ae. In another word, which is closely related to this one, which abbreviated ae, ae, ae, which you could call abhisamaya lankara aloka. Now, when we read the sitra in morning service, as you know, you open your sitra up. If you turn the page, for example, 45, and you look, can you find page 45?

[22:07]

Everybody there? If you look there, you see various, before you, what we're reading in service is we read, when the Lord saw that the whole universe, with the world of the gods, the world of Mars, and so on, that's what we read. But you notice there's quite a bit of material up above there. It says chapter two. It says the thought of enlightenment. It says the aims in cultivating the wisdom. It says the knowledge of all modes, it says the varieties of the thought of enlightenment, and it says the thought of enlightenment connected with the desire for full enlightenment in general. Okay? Now, this material is not, particularly speaking, part of the sutra. The sutra, when it was originally written, didn't have this material in it. And then you go down a little lower, and then you see another heading, which is called Roman numeral one, Arabic 1B.

[23:07]

It says, the thought of enlightenment connection with the desire for full enlightenment in detail. So in the sutra, as it originally was composed, it didn't have that heading either. So the sutra was just all solid. The big sutra was just solid, the way we read it, with none of these headings. So what these headings are is a combination of, and mostly, as you see from the title there, to cut the hard cover. It's the Abhisamayalamkara division superimposed on the sutra. So there was this commentary called Abhisamayalamkara. Commentary. And this grid, what was laid onto the text is taken and set on top of the sutra. Appropriately, so that the sutra was divided up in the packages so that the commentary would explain what kind of stuff is under these headings.

[24:18]

However, these headings are not all obviously myelankar. For example, the italics are not obviously myelankar. Those are put in by Edward Konzert. And the title of the chapter is not obviously a mile long color. This is a chapter heading, not from the pancha, but from the 18,000 line sutra. Pancha does not have chapter headings. These chapter headings are taken off from another sutra. You have the sutra, which has no headings and no explanation, no table of contents or anything. But first of all, you have chapter headings put onto it from another sutra. Then you have this commentary called, obviously, Mahalongkar laid onto it. And you also have Edward Konza's descriptions laid onto it. So one way to study the sutra is to, first of all, look at this commentary and study the commentary, study the grid, which actually is a picture of the Buddhist path.

[25:25]

And then Set the picture of the Buddhist path, the grid of the Buddhist path, on top of the sutra and see how that grid describes how the sutra is actually describing the Buddhist path. And then set the picture of the Buddhist path, the grid of the Buddhist path, on top of the sutra and see how that grid describes how the sutra is actually describing the Buddhist path. And actually we have one version of the sutra. where actually it's like this. So the original version is just solid stuff with no explanation. And it's another version that has the ,, embedded in the sutra, like it is here. Yes? When you say that it has the ,, are these just titles taken from it?

[26:28]

What we see in the paragraph headaches, is that the entire office? It's the entire office of my own car. Same here. It was just like a phrase rather than . because there's no more than somewhere else. But we do have a work by two works by Obermiller. One is Analysis of Abhisamayalankara, and the other is that's under the commentaries.

[27:34]

And we also have the Doctrine of the Prajnaparamita as Exposed in the Abhisamayalankara of Maitreya. Okay? So in this second work here, Mr. Obermiller explains what this commentary is trying to do. And there's one more commentary, which is closely related to this, called Hraloka. And this is a little tricky. What happens with this sutra is that this famous Buddhist scholar named Haribhadra, what he did is he took this Mabhisamaya grid. He pulled it off the pancha and put it on top of the ashta.

[28:39]

He pulled the Abbasanaya grid which was made as a commentary and was placed on top of the big sutra. He pulled it off and put it on top of the 8000 wine and then he explained further how that works and what the sense of that is. And that's the aloka. And so we have little bits and pieces of the aloka here in footnotes in this, in Kansa in footnotes. And we have other little bits and pieces of various poses, which, when they're relevant, I'll try to bring them up for a little I've been able to find here and there. So this is the... This is the commentary of resources, which I think are within our grasp to use at this point.

[29:42]

Maybe somebody else can use something else, but this is what we have available. Yes? Yes, originally, the suture was written without anything, without chapter headings, without Right now I can't remember the date, but one's called the, you know, it's initial P, and another one's called PA. So there's two main versions. One version just a straight text, and the other is a version with the Abbasunayalankar in it. And Kanza's using the one with the Abbasunayalankar in it. Kanza? Yeah. All right, you did. This is already done. Of course, he used bulk text plus lots of other texts. This is an edited text. This text isn't like any of the texts that exist, okay?

[30:44]

There's no text like this in the original. He patched various things together to make what he thought was the most intelligible sutra for us to read. And as he says, maybe later when some people study the big commentary more, and things like that, that a better addition could be made. For example, a much better addition could be made if we didn't have the and so-ons. It's quite a different feeling to say this stuff rather than saying the and so-ons. So part of what this class would be would be to figure out what the and so-ons are. Like a lot of people maybe don't know that and so-on means there's stuff in there, interesting stuff. Like, people get into, you know, form is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from form. But if they just remember to do the same thing, if you just say, perceptions are not different from form.

[31:50]

Emptiness is not different from perceptions. Emptiness is not different from feelings. If you say it that way to yourself, if you can actually understand that, you get quite a different impression. So lists are collapsed. Many times you start with just a few little things at the beginning of the path and you jump over to complete Buddhahood. There's a whole big section that's called and so on. But there's definite things that you know and they skip sometimes what's in there. It's quite different to know what's in there than to say and so on and not know. What were you going to say? It does not exist in Sanskrit. Maybe it never did. You see, that's why I'm suggesting that it's possible. Certainly what we have in Chinese is not what, there was not, it doesn't make any sense that what we have in Chinese was literally written by Nagarjuna.

[32:50]

The only question is, was there actually a text over here, commentary on the sutra that he was looking at? Well, there was some text. Because Pumarajiva was a disciple, of this school founded by Nagarjuna. So he did study texts of this school. But whether there was a text which was really a huge, you know, in English, 2,000-page commentary on this sutra, or there was that kind of commentary that he had available to him, or whether it was perhaps not there at all, or maybe just 25 pages, we don't know. Sanskrit titles of what? Were the Sanskrit titles coming? Yeah, they're reconstructed in Chinese. So this person, Kumarajiva, when he said a technical term in Chinese, he probably had a good sense of what Sanskrit word was there.

[33:57]

You could see by the structure of his other works, scholars can tell very accurately. what Sanskrit word you would have used there. Is that in English? Is that a translational? It is a translational class. Sometimes, but usually in this big situation. When they go out. In one sense, I don't exactly criticize Professor Townsend because if he did it, maybe it would be that public, right? But on the other hand, for students of the Darno, it's a whole different impression. And so I thought, you know, it wouldn't be that difficult. Now that you've done this, we could fill in the list. We have Sanskrit text. It would be easy to figure out what they were because the lists are very simple. The grammar in the list is very simple.

[35:00]

It's not like complicated discourse. It's just names of stuff, and they're almost like the dictionary definitions. So all you have to do is look at the spot and see what site there is. So we could make our own text if we wanted to do that. But then who would read it? I guess we would. Okay. So once again, the sutra, a sutra is something which isn't really a school. There's no school that owns a sutra. Okay? All different schools of Buddhism are just various teaching devices which try to use the sutras for people. So the Madhyamaka school is one way of using the sutras. The Yogacara is another way. Now, although this text is the Prajnaparamita text, and it's often said that the Madhyamika school founded by Nagarjuna is a school that comes from the Prajnaparamita literature.

[36:07]

Okay. However, the Yogacara school also feels that their school is in accord with the Prajnaparamita literature also. It's just that they also go to some other school, other texts, like the Samadhi Nirmocana Sutra and the Lankavatar Sutra, they use these sutras as background for their school too, whereas the Mahajamaka doesn't use these texts. Is that clear? So this Yogacara school is also going to the big sutra. You're trying to make its peace with it. You're trying to show us how it is that this sutra is teaching, a teaching which is which is their school also. So basically what they're doing is, with this Abhya Samayalankar, is they're superimposing Abhya Dharma teaching of the path on top of the big sutra.

[37:11]

And it's by the Yogacara understanding that they place this traditional Buddhist path model on top of the sutra. Is it just the Abhidharma path? Well, it's basically Abhidharma, yeah. But it's more than Abhidharma because it's Abhidharma now blown apart because it's placed on top of the Mahayana, Great Mahayana Sutra. So, of course, the Abhidharma doesn't have the Bodhisattva aspects. But the placement of this pack on top of this material, as you know, there's almost nothing there but Abhidharma. So the adjustment of how to put it on is mostly Abhidharma. But in fact, the Abhidharma doesn't give a detailed teaching about the paths of the Bodhisattva.

[38:18]

So in those places, the Abhidharma will be supplemented. But it's basically Abhidharma. It's basically the five paths of the Abhidharma, the path of equipment, the path of concerted effort, the path of insight, the path of meditation, and the super mundane path, or the path of the Arapati. And also in this, you have the heats. Anyway, I'll pop that little one up there. Another point about this authorship of the Dajra Dalun, Maha Prajnaparamita, oh, it's also called, another name for it is, Maha Prajnaparamita Upvesha Shastra.

[39:43]

was not attached to that level of understanding. And these texts are these various set of, you know, species of literature called the Prajnaparamita texts. And the, uh, The master, the leading exponent of the Abhidharma, his name is Shariputra. He's known as the foremost expert in the Abhidharma. And if you look here in Chapter 2 of your text, you see that Shariputra is the one who's asking the Buddha what's What's the way that a Bodhisattva should make endeavors in the perfect wisdom?

[41:00]

So here you have the great Abhidharma master asking the Buddha. You have the great master of the Abhidharmic wisdom asking the Buddha, how a Bodhisattva, a Parthi, should make endeavors in this wisdom beyond wisdom? And then Buddha explains. And his explanation runs on for a while. In his explanation, what the Buddha chooses to explain to Shariputra is very much couched in terms that Shariputra would understand. Namely, teachings of the Abhidharma, things that you find in the Abhidharma. Because Shariputra is not much more than just Abhidharma. He has sort of transmuted his interests in his life into Abhidharma.

[42:05]

That's all he cares about. That's all he thinks about. That's all he studies. Day and night, always thinking about Abhidharma. And he understands it very well. He is a very wise Buddhist saint. And in fact, among the Abhidharmas, he is the wisest of all. So he asked Buddha about this. And the reason why I asked Buddha is because of this introduction, chapter one. Various events have occurred in chapter one, which makes Shariputra very interested in this bodhisattva path. In the teaching of the Abhidharma, the world doesn't shake in six directions, usually. It's more, less dramatic teaching. Although they have teachings about the world shaking, in fact, the Abhidharma students don't usually have that kind of thing happen to them.

[43:09]

So when they actually see a Buddha now doing this kind of thing, they're very susceptible to be interested in these kinds of things. You see, Abhidharmas, although they have their problems sometimes, they're still, you know, pretty good and often quite vulnerable people. They're vulnerable to the Mahayana. So here, Chariputra, he doesn't have a clear response to what happens prior to this chapter one. He wants to know what's going on. So he asks, and then Buddha speaks to him, in other words, Buddha speaks to him in his own language, Chariputra's language, which is the Abhidhana. So in that way, the Prajnaparamita texts speak to those who speak the language called Abhidharma.

[44:09]

You see, once again, the Harsitya does the same thing. Buddha's meditating. And then Avalokiteshvara, on Buddha's behalf, explains the Shariputra. Once again, the same Shariputra, Abhidharma master, explains what's going on. Once again, because Chariputra is this avidharma student, avidharma master, the Heart Sutra is explained in the words of the avidharma in a condensed form, which, of course, Chariputra understands perfectly well. But in this sutra, it's explained in a very detailed form over many more pages. Now, you could lay the Buddhist path on top of the heart sutra too. But it would get a little crowded and you wouldn't have much heart sutra between the various stages. But this sutra is big enough that you can lay the complex elements of the Buddhist path in various patterns on top of the sutra and still have some sutra in between.

[45:16]

So what's done here is that first of all you have the Buddha teaching this Abhidana student what's beyond that. And that's the sutra. Then you have, in a separate volume, a commentary on the sutra. Once again, explaining in detail what's going on there. Then you have another commentary, which is superimposed on the sutra. So you take the sutra and you spread it apart and you put the commentary in. You spread it apart and put the commentary in like that throughout the commentary. And that grid is obviously my law card. Abhisamaya means, you know, understanding of comprehension. And wankara means adornment. So it's like, it's kind of like you hang this jewel, this jewel necklace and these bracelets and so on, you hang them on the sutra. And then you look, you know, and you look at this, you look at the jewel, you know, like you look at this jewel over here. And this jewel is not just coincidentally here, this jewel has a certain color or something.

[46:24]

And you look around the jewel, you see all these little, you know, you see maybe a nipple and a hair and ribs, okay? So the jewels are placed on the body of the sutra in such a way that they tell you something about the neighborhood around the jewel. So in that sense, it's the adornment of the sutra. It's the understanding and adornment laid on the sutra. It's obviously my lanka in that way. Or another way I thought of it one time is that It's like if you have a field, you know, a field of teaching. You can go out in the field however you want. It doesn't matter how you go out there. And that's why you can read this sutra. You can read this sutra without the obvious malangkar, without the dhajjodali, without anything. Just go out and jump in it. Just read through it. That's what we do in one service. No direction, okay? But you can also just like, you know, have a field and you can make a miniature golf course on it, right? And you can have a little bridge here, and a little hill there, and a little windmill there.

[47:36]

And you can follow this path through the field. And if you actually do ever go to a miniature golf course and walk around there, you get quite a different impression of the field by taking a certain path than you would have just walked out there without any path. It's not to say that the Abhisattva Malangkar is the only one. Because you can also, as you know, in a miniature golf course, you can walk all over the place if you want to. There's no rule that you have to go that path. Just like in a golf course, you can walk sideways instead of straight between the holes. Walk that way too. But nonetheless, the fact that this grid is laid on this land offers something. And the names of the holes or whatever are technical Buddhist stages and Buddhist teachings. But in fact, it's nothing more than that, just a pathway on top of a teaching. Everything there is jewels, and it's a path on top of a field of jewels, and the path itself has labels, which are other jewels, which illuminate the neighborhood, and so on.

[48:43]

So it's a type of teaching about a teaching about a teaching about a teaching, and so on. On page 45, can you continue to report a different reading? The thought of enlightenment is the name of a chapter from the 18,000 lines, OK? When was the divided chapter? This is by Edward Kahn. The chapter division. Yes. The, the, what? The thought of enlightenment is a chapter heading which Professor Shonza pulled from what's called Ashtara, 18,000 line, Prajnaparamita.

[49:44]

This is never in the Kahn. It's like he wanted for our benefit to have chapter titles And it turns out that they're somewhat relevant. But there's not an apancha. This is from another sutra. Then the next thing is the parentheses, OK? The aims in cultivating perfect wisdom. Professor Kanza put that in there. Does he have a scheme of how he comes to the definition? Well, yes, and I'll tell you that it's another time. Next is knowledge of all modes. This is obviously my Alankara. And... The next thing I'm not sure about, but the bold type, I'll check on that, but I'm not sure right now.

[51:23]

But the next line, the thought of enlightenment connected with the desire for full enlightenment in general, and the next one after that, the thought of enlightenment connected with the desire for full enlightenment in detail. This is obviously my Aloncar heading. You know, one of these pages in the dictionary, Right. So if you look back in the... you have two tables of contents, okay? First table of contents... Well, actually, I'm media free. First table of contents is right after the title page. Okay? You don't have the book. But anyway, the first table of contents tells you that what you first have is the chapter headings... from the 18,000 lines. And they put in correspondence with the pancha, and they put in correspondence with the pages in this book.

[52:39]

And the next heading is the Divisions of Obvious Amaya Lankara. So now, the first heading in the Divisions of Obvious Amaya Lankara, the first heading you see there is the Knowledge of All Modes. That's the Obvious Amaya Lankara. The second heading we see now is Obvious Amaya Lankara, and it's called Varieties of Thought of Enlightenment. And the next heading, under the obvious in my line card, in the table of contents in the front of the sutra, which not all of you have, is called Instructions. If you look on page 56. Yeah, page 56? Yes.

[53:49]

See there, it says in bold. that hold his instructions. That's the second heading in the table of contents at the front of the sutra, which we don't all have, but anyway, the second heading called instructions in the table of contents here under divisions of obviously some of the lankara. But you see this table of contents only has some of them. So under varieties of thought of enlightenment, you have, first of all, varieties of thought of enlightenment. in connection with the desire for full enlightenment in general. Then you have varieties of thought of enlightenment in connection with full enlightenment in detail. Then you have varieties of thought of enlightenment, which has the welfare of other beings as its object in general, and varieties of thoughts of enlightenment, which has welfare of other beings as its object in detail. Then you have 22 varieties of thought of enlightenment.

[54:50]

This is Abhisamaya Lankara. And in these 22 varieties of enlightenment are superimposed on the sutra. Sutra didn't tell you when you put it read it that you're reading about 22 varieties of enlightenment. Now you see that's what's going on with it. Then if you look, maybe we should give people these tables of contents. There's another table of contents later before the sutra starts, which is called Outline, the chapter 1 through 21. And in there, it says preface, and then it says seeds and circumstances, and it says bees and cultivating perfect wisdom. And these are the italics, okay? And these are professors, what? Very good. Page 31.

[55:53]

So we'll give you, we'll give you these two tables of, well maybe, we'll give you the table of contents. These two tables of contents. One is the Abhisattva Mayalankara division, which is just two pages here. And then the other one is the outlines of chapters 1 through 21. It's not part of the . And these are just, actually, this obvious in my Aloncar division here is also an outline of the obvious in my Aloncar division. Because you see, under varieties of . There's lots of entries in full type there. But you just have one heading, . It's very interesting you say that the . Yes. OK. So like you

[57:21]

I see on page 57, look at page 57 again. Page 56. So on page 56, you see observations. Observations is a chapter heading taken from the 18,000 line version of the Citrus. Then number three, various preliminary instructions, a short outline of methods of coursing in perfect wisdom. This is Kanza. Okay, so that's Kanza's Descriptive outline for you. Yeah. That's the outline that's on page 31. Look there. It says, various preliminary instructions, short outline of methods of coursing in perfect wisdom. And instructions in bold type there. That's obviously my Alankara. And then structures about the progress, that's Abhisamaya Lankara.

[58:22]

Okay? And then the next page, 57B, the superiority of the bodhisattvas over the disciples, that's Professor Kansa. Okay? So italics of Professor Kansa's descriptive outline in the bold is Abhisamaya Lankara. And the chapter heading is up in the ashta. Okay, so any questions so far? Any other questions at this point? Could you spell it? Could you spell it? Could you spell it? I think it should be a slash on the S. T. A. D. A. Sahasrika.

[59:25]

18. It's on the reading list under related sutras. So maybe at this point, if you have no questions, you might look at the reading list a little bit. First thing is the Sanskrit. of the pancha. I have partial Sanskrit, Romanized Sanskrit of pancha. I could get the whole thing, I suppose. I mean, I could, yes. So there's the main text that Professor Kanza used in this translation. However, as I mentioned, as you can see, if you read the introductory material and the footnotes of this, translation.

[60:28]

He used other texts, too, to make his translation. And then the English translation of it is listed there. And also we have the Chinese now. I didn't write it in here, but we have Chinese original, which original means original translation. And what? Well, we have lots of them. I could tell you if you want to know. All the different editions. So the pancha exists. The original text. Then we have Chinese, the Chinese would learn.

[61:31]

I show number P221, P222, and P2.3.4. First translation of the pancha is done in 286 A.D. by Manny A.D. Dharma Raksha. Second translation is in 286 A.D. 3801 AB by Mokshava. Third translation is done in 403 4 by Tamarjita.

[62:53]

Four translations done in 60, 63 by Shenzhen. These are the four Chinese translations that we have of this big subject. There's also a Tibetan translation, the first Tibetan translation, major Tibetan translation. is done in 731 A.D. And the reworked version of the Tibetan, where the Amisimaya Long Power is added in, is also available in Tibetan. And these are all . Any other questions at this point?

[64:15]

Yes? I said, first of all, he didn't write it. Kumar Jeeva was Central Asian, and I don't think we can assume that he could write the Chinese that's attributed to him. Almost all the things of Kumarajiva has produced his beautiful Chinese. So he must have... His knowledge is obviously the resource for all these translations he did. But he wasn't Chinese. And I don't know, I've gotten the impression that although he did learn some Chinese, and he somehow had some way to communicate with Chinese people, he didn't compose these sutras. these translations all by himself, okay? But what I was talking about was not the sutra, because he was in charge of this translation of the sutra, and the sutra, we do know, he did have a Sanskrit original.

[65:25]

And there were other Sanskrit originals, and we have a Sanskrit original, okay? There's not, you don't have instruction about that. The question is, the commentary, which is attributed to Nagarjuna, did Nagarjuna really write the commentary on the sutra? And maybe he didn't. Maybe Kumarajiva wrote the commentary. Maybe he had a little book there by Kumarajiva, by Nagarjuna that he's looking at. Maybe he had a big book. But he wasn't, it isn't just a translation from Nagarjuna. It's something else, something more complex is going on. There's lots of things in there that Nagarjuna wouldn't have written, as I said. He wouldn't have There was no Chinese people in Nagarjuna's audience. But one picture of the translation of this sutra is that Kumarajiva was a notice scholar, and that his translations were actually done in public.

[66:30]

And the emperor even would come to his translation events, and Kumarajiva would maybe stand or sit with a bureau of Chinese scholars with him. Yeah. So he might have this whole staff there, you know, and a big audience out here. And he might be sitting there with something in front of him and sort of mumble something to these people. And, you know, some kind of a ripple would go down. And then finally, at the end of the row, some Chinese poet would get up and say a few lines. In the meantime, he'd be saying something. Another ripple would go down. You know, they'd say another line, and all the people in the audience would say, wow. Because it would be Nagarjuna's understanding of the scriptures, which they'd never heard before, but then phrased in beautiful Chinese, and somebody else was taking it down. And then you can tell this kind of scale of event seems likely because the people in the audience were notables, you know, like the emperor.

[67:38]

And they could even say stuff which was also recorded and then then back to Kumarajiva and he would respond to it and come back down out again. Something like that you could see. So it's kind of like, I mean, just a kind of majestic event. But the idea that the possibility that Kumarajiva was actually responding to the Emperor's Chinese and giving back to the beautiful Chinese is rather unlikely, although he was the source of the Buddhist understanding. which is conveyed in these excellent translations, that the number of the translations which he was in charge of producing are still the best. They haven't been surpassed, you know, in 1600 years, which is pretty good. Of course, after about a thousand years, they stopped trying to surpass it, but this Shenyang was incredibly

[68:41]

brilliant Buddhist scholar and fine writer and real Chinese. And his translations, technically speaking, are sometimes superior to Kumar Jeevas, but the Chinese was never beautiful, so they never was popular. So the idea that this great Buddhist scholar, Chinese Buddhist scholar, couldn't write better Chinese than Kumar Jeeva was ridiculous. So obviously Kumar Jeeva didn't write Chinese, but he was a source of the understanding for some literary Chinese people to put it out. These literary Chinese might have been monks, might have been just ministers, I don't know. And Kumarajiva, in this case, didn't even say, he didn't even put himself in there. He said Nagarjuna wrote this. So maybe Nagarjuna did write some commentary. But what it was, we don't know. What Kumarajiva was looking at, we don't know. Maybe he was looking at the pancha that he had translated.

[69:42]

Maybe he's looking at the pancha in the original, and maybe he had a whole bunch of majamaka commentaries around him. Nagarjuna said this about this topic. Nagarjuna said this about that topic. And when you get to that part of the sutra, he'd look up what Nagarjuna had to say about this and that, and he'd read this, and then he'd say something. Okay? So in a sense, he might have been using various other texts, none of which were directly related to this text. Because, you see, this text very well might have been written after Nagarjuna was dead. I don't know. This text may have developed during his lifetime or after, so he may never have written a commentary on this. It's very likely. My image of Nagarjuna is that he doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would go through this big book like this and comment on it line after line. I just don't see him doing it.

[70:44]

If you look at his other works, he seemed to just take an idea and develop it out to its logical conclusions. It's much more sort of elegant and hierarchical rather than sort of systematic in the sense of just tediously going through line by line. Well, not tediously, but anyway, storyliningly. Because this commentary is so huge, I can't picture, look at the other works of Nagarjuna, they're so short and powerful. This commentary is just a vast thing, 2,000 pages. So it seems out of character. But it doesn't seem out of character for Kumarajiva, who is very valuable and produced thousands of pages of other stuff and had huge staffs to work from, so it's pretty easy. So I, I'm not going to make the case exactly for this, except that the sutra, this commentary, the school is first of all called, the Madhyamaka school is first of all called the Three Treatise School, but this is the fourth treatise.

[72:00]

This big sutra commentary is the fourth treatise, but the school is called the Three Treatise School. So strictly speaking, it's those other three treatises which are really Nagarjuna's that are foundation of school. And this is like a big encyclopedia that's attached to the school. So we can use this encyclopedia to study the sutra. We can use the Panjini, obviously, Mayalankara to study the sutra. And we can just directly go at the sutra without any commentary also. Yes. It seems that it really developed the school and tradition of the other . And then this seems to be that you're realizing that language in that teaching.

[73:03]

It seems that there's like a body or there's some There's some subject to this kind of teaching that we know much about how, what that was at school. There seems to be comments made about . Is that, does that go back to, like, one person or several people, like, with the, the kind of filling out, the difference between what we see in this situation? Is it, is it, like, more than just sort of, like, many people are meditating and practicing together, and this is sort of, like, the situation is representing meaning that the father is there, because there's something more seminal about victimization.

[74:12]

Well, the Prajna Parameda literature is particularly tied to the Abhidana. But there's other non-hayanic texts. Right. Because there's other Mahayana texts, like the Lotus Sutra, it's not so closely tied to the Abhidana. But then the Lotus Sutra is not directed, so it's not primarily directed necessarily at Buddhist monks. It's more teaching, it's a more universal teaching. This sutra has a tendency to be directed more to monks, whereas the Lotus Sutra is directed to a wider audience, to laymen more. As a result, the Lotus Sutra doesn't have so much a superficially obvious abhidharma in it. It's not jam-packed full of abhidharmas.

[75:15]

It has more stories and more images, non-abhidharmic images. And so where this other material in here that's not abhidharmic comes from, that same source, as I said, a lot, if you look at the other Parjma Kamini texts, the earlier ones, They have less Abhidharma, but they also have less non-Abhidharma. Abhidharma is not so detailed, but there's almost nothing besides Abhidharma anyway. Whereas this, it picks up some elements which you might find like the Lotus Sutra-like elements that have been picked up into the Sutra. At the beginning, it sounded just like the Lotus Sutra, very similar feeling. But there's another school of Mahayana that's not just a reaction to... Mahayana comes from various sources. One source is people that are directly responding to Abhidharma teachers and those problems.

[76:16]

There's other schools which are just rebellious monks, you know, rebellious monks and rebellious laymen from the establishment school. And they can come up with all kinds of other materials. That's what tantra is about. Here's my question. Do we know much about the school per se? We don't know, but they're not schools because they... No, they're not schools, but they write sutras. So they're also not necessarily identified as individuals. Right. There's no individual. We don't know who. There's not a school that wrote the Lotus, but there is a school. There was a group of people probably that wrote the Lotus. There was a song that they wrote the Lotus Sutra. certain type of practice, they wrote it properly. But it wasn't, the schools are actually philosophical developments from the sutras, like the Madhama and the Yogacara. And these commentaries, these two commentaries, represent these two schools, these two ways of looking at the sutra.

[77:23]

The sutra itself, to boost the potentiality. In the different kind of place, we know the Ashta did, the Ashta with Dhanuraksha campaign was much different than the one that, the consequence was 1,000 years later. And I was wondering if that applies specifically to the one that Dhanuraksha translated was a different, longer, shorter version than . That is a development in Chinese. There's certain teachings that are in the later one that aren't in the earlier one. And there's certain teachings also. There's certain teachings in the pancha that aren't in the ashta and so on. For example, in the ashta, ashta is a fine sutra, but doesn't have the idea in it that a bodhisattva takes on the suffering of others. That's not in the ashta. but it is in the pancha.

[78:28]

And, for example, the ashta, the 8,000 lines, has some little bit of talk about purifying Buddha fields, but the pancha has lots and lots of talk about purifying Buddha fields. But once again, so is the lotus scripture. And so Vimalakirti Sutra is really that primary teaching of Vimalakirti Sutra is purifying lotus fields. So you see that the early, the Ashta, the very early Mahayama teaching, the earliest that we have record. The pancha comes up with the lotus and the Vimalakirti and so you see those teachings now are in the Vidic Sutra too. Well, as I said, we talked about that more, but it's attributed, first of all, to Maitreya.

[79:43]

No, Kumajiva probably wrote... the commentary on the pancha. Kumarajita probably wrote this thing called the Maha Parinavana Upadesha Shastra or Maha Parinavana Maha Prajnaparamita Upadesha Shastra. He probably wrote that. That's attributed to Nagarjuna. But he didn't write the sutra. The sutra is written by Buddha. Or rather it's recorded as Buddha was talking to various people. Any other questions? I imagine there's a somewhat... a lot of stuff at once, but anyway.

[80:48]

Yes? But you know the difference between the obvious and the obvious and the obvious I think that the analysis goes along in great detail for quite a while, and then the analysis all of a sudden gets very abbreviated. And so I think that the analysis is more expanded in more detail for a while, and then later it gets to be very... abbreviated, that's what I said. So the analysis doesn't, it isn't consistent in the way it treats the material. It sort of closes down shop towards the end there. Cons is consistent. Yeah, I think so.

[81:51]

He goes to a similar depth all the way through. And if he gets simple, he just abbreviates what he's already talked about. But he doesn't have this sort of, what do you call it, damping effect that the analysis has. The analysis, I forgot exactly how it works, but for a while there, it's being very explanatory, and if you turn towards the end of it, you don't get anything anymore. It just barely mentions stuff. So what do you want to do? How do you want to study it? Any ideas? Do you want to start reading the sutra orally? Do you want to start studying the commentary line by line going through the sutra? Do you want to read what we read last week and talk about what it meant?

[82:56]

Any ideas? Actually, we have a book in the library called Pramysimaya Lankara, okay? And it's a book all by itself. It doesn't have any of the sutra in it, okay? Just the headings, just the stuff. You can read it, and there's a teaching there without the sutra. But, of course, it's much different than when you lay it on top of the suit, but it's the same as what's in there. You could take that, what's in that book, and match it to what he has in between here. I'd like to suggest, just from my own interest to me, is to, during the next week, go through this reading list in the library and look at it.

[83:58]

What kind of text . [...] Any other ideas? There's a French translation, complete French translation. No, it's finished it finally. Mr. Lamotte, he finished it. there's partial translations, which I can make available to you.

[85:03]

Just partial, the similar parts. When I was asking you, would looking at that, be helpful or is that to show meaning and it itself? As a way of It is, but I think it'd be better if you first start looking at these things by Obermiller, the analysis and the doctrine by Obermiller, because they'll explain to you something about how to use the Apsumaya Lankar with the Sutra. And I don't know, maybe we don't have enough of those We have one book which is particularly relevant, which you stay in the library all the time.

[86:06]

It's called The Materials for the Dictionary. It's in there. See, Materials for a Dictionary, under concept, other works. That would be the most relevant one, probably. And if you're talking about English work, other English words, Are you talking about the English words or Sanskrit words? The English words. Yeah. We also have a book called List of Lists. So whenever you see numbers, you can look it up in that list. But we don't have a book Aside from the one that I just mentioned, where you find much use of trying to look up an English word and getting a Sanskrit equivalent, or look up an English word and try to get a Buddhist definition out of it.

[87:10]

Well, if you have a number, then you're in good shape, because you can look it up in a list. But it has a citation, too. Yeah, as I tell you, it said like... So Thurman Vimalakriti and Ashta, in the back of that, Konza's translation, and also this book, what? Ardayal book. And also, what's it, that... The philosophy of Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna's philosophy has one. So if you look at the books, look in the indexes and tables of contents and glossaries at the back of some of these books that are listed on here, and you'll find resources.

[88:16]

Yes? Did you write that on the board, that hard dial? Just looking at that recently, it does have a lot of the Bodhisattva. Bodhisattva doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit literature. Maybe put that on reserve, maybe all of those. Bodhisattva doctrine, Sanskrit, Buddhist literature. And you also find lots of stuff to find in this Bhutan article also has, if you read in there, that book is also closely related to this book. And you'll find lots of, it has definitions in the notes after the two sections there too.

[89:22]

Yeah. Okay, so I'd like to end the class tonight by reading this verse. I guess for assignment, why don't you just... scout around in the reading list and read through the beginning of the sutra.

[90:22]

We have some . So you can also read the introduction to the sutra. in the whole sutra. And if you want to buy your own copy, put your order in. I guess Burt's mother is critically ill now, so he's not here, but maybe you could tell Jill and she could shoot me a list of all of you that want to order the whole sutra. If you want to get the whole thing. But anyway. Just one or two copies of You never need books to have, so don't go too often. Well, I don't think you should take them out at all. There's only two copies. Don't take any of the stuff out of the library that's on the reading list, unless you maybe get specific permission from Jill. Because if you only have two copies of this stuff, you can't take them out at all. I think just read it in the library, and if you want to take it out of the library, if you really have that desire,

[91:27]

then we'll just have to make more copies of them or something for you. But in lieu of that, just leave them, just leave them, or have some specific relation, arrange them with her so that you can take it as she knows where you've got it. Because with this many people, we can't be, we can't take it out overnight even. That won't work. That's not been my experience that's anything that, taking that overnight doesn't work. Because people want to read it, you know, when you've got it. Yeah, you know. So I was in service, and breakfast, and at least it was 8.30, and when you're late to work, you forget. You sit in your room all day, and it just creates too much difficulty. So I just leave it in the library until you have no copies. I'm sorry we don't have more copies, but I'd like to see by use how many copies we need rather than by disappearing and have people just wish that they were there.

[92:36]

And this is the hymn to the perfect wisdom from a Prajnaparamita text. All right, let's switch in together. Homage to me, perfect wisdom. I will listen to the same people. All five lives are accomplished. All of the silos are rigidly certain, spotless, unconstructed assignment, like with diastics and heads of space. We're not sure that there's no easy thing, but to die that we see things. As the blue light does not divert my thing in the book, it's also about what values are going to call me where she is. And it was a teacher of the world. But it was already breaking the beat, with the darkness terrible thing. And what went with these celebrations, I'd like to stick down and compare. Fear and fire said what must they do when you put a pot of meat, clearly had the best complete CSS in certain.

[93:46]

What would that happen when we go to the people? To all of the heroes, the true gladness had been well heard whatsoever. I don't find it without his marriage, but we get his hurt, and we get his love. He chooses my portal, but the goodness are not going to be good-fashioned as I was. They are not the hope of most of me, but I am the best of things all. I'll probably be happy with perfectionism, but all in all my life is encircled me. It has the power surrounding the person, but we now have the aimless only one. But I was in the air that [...] I was in the air

[94:50]

When I get out of tears, I lose assurance it was. I don't want one to know what the action has for me. The memory I had delivered and I had not wanted to be able to leave, but what many of the days. My eye on any word that comes, it had to deliver the sound modes. It had been funny, I said, since it had already happened to me. I have to see me in this right now. It's a bad change to me. Again, it's a bad dream. I don't know what it says. One of the things that I'm used to. [...] But I'm not sure what I want to see, and yet I don't want to be on the scene at all. But I'm not sure what I want to see, but I guess life will support you, too.

[95:55]

But I don't want to add to the celebration, but there is no wonder for me. Secrets are no wonder for me, besides that everyone understands, speaking of being a scary person, yet I'm being right through my street. who will have people near to praise the lacking signs and beat of us, that I hope they can just make sure that I'm not supported anywhere. Either such words are my language, I must be in the wealthy, with none of our great concern, so we reach the attitude. But I might praise the perfect wisdom of whatever I can be there, that I can make the world devoid. It is supposed to come without being.

[96:44]

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