Day: August 23, 2023

Mountain Doctrine

Part Nine Döl-bo-ba argues hat although the ultimate, the body of attributes, not produced, is not contradictory for it to be an effect. its attainment is a separative effect, an effect of having been separated from peripheral defilements. The presence of self-arisen pristine wisdom’ is not sufficient; other-arisen pristine wisdom must be produced through practising the path. He uses the metaphor of the sky to convey the point: That which is self-arisen pristine wisdom, ultimate truth, abiding pervasively in all do not differ in anyone as to its natural purity, but through the force of persons, there are the differences of purity from adventitious defilements and of impurity due to adventitious defilements, like the fact that the sole sky which by its own nature does not exist as entities of clouds and is purified of entities of clouds not purified of clouds in some areas and is purified of clouds in other areas. Therefore, it is not contradictory that just as sky that is not purified of clouds does not exist in any area, so sky that is purified of clouds does not exist in any area, but, due to the area, there is impure sky and there is pure sky. Similarly, while the naturally pure, sole, basic element of the ultimate abides together with defilements in some persons and abides without defilements in some, it is posited as the basis and the fruit through the force of the presence or the absence of defilements in persons, but the entity of the noumenon does not differ. The noumenon is the same, whether realised or not. However, dependent upon realisation, beings come to be termed impure, partially pure, and pure. Two Lineages in order to show how the matrix-of-one-gone-thus yields Buddhahood, Döl-bo-ba addresses the topics of its two divisions, called the two causal lineages. The first is the noumenon clear light itself, the natural lineage, and the other consists of the spiritual activities of accumulating wisdom and merit, the developmental lineage. From those two, respectively, arise the two buddha bodies-the body