Next topic is a successive realization of the four roots of merit (四善根), leading through the path of seeing and meditation to the attainment of Arhathood. Following this, the author explains three kinds of realization: Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha, and Bodhisattva, and praises the practice of bodhicitta, leading to the attainment of Buddhahood. The last part of the treatise takes us through the first three practices counteracting greed, hatred, and delusion, but with a perspective of the highest realization. Here, the Bodhisattva with craving being predominant, contemplates the thirty-six bodily parts until he becomes disgusted with body. When disenchanted by it, he gives rise to a great compassion (mahākaruṇā) and bodhicitta. Then he takes vows to save himself together with all sentient beings from suffering caused by rejoicing at bodily impurities and other perversions, such as seeing permanence in impermanence and self in non self. With the deepening of his contemplation he attains the true mark of all phenomena, Emptiness. In it all distinctions between pure and impure cease to exist. If a Bodhisattva inclines to hatred, he meditates on love (maitrī), being its opposite. When he succeeds to spread it in all directions without getting involved in discrimination between different kinds of individuals, he takes a vow to save all beings without difference by leading them to the ultimate happiness of Nirvāṇa. Due to this practice his mind becomes like a great ocean, which cannot be affected by little dirt of burning afflictions that harm other beings, and he learns to practice the perfect maitrī samādhi of Buddhas that is without object and continuous (apranihita samādhi, 无缘三昧). A Bodhisattva with the predominance of delusion, after mastering the samādhi on the twelve links of interdependent origination together with thepractice of the thirty-seven factors of Enlightment, contemplates theabsence of self-existent nature of all entities (niḥsvabhāva, 无自性), while cultivating bodhicitta. Thus he learns the middle path as being non different from Nirvāṇa, the true state of all beings. Besides these we find several other innovations, making it different from the standard Sarvāstivāda and Mahāyāna literature. So, for example, we have a division of the objects of the concentration of the repulsive dead bodies according to seven kinds of thirst (trshna) instead of the usual six or four (see Abhidharmakośa, Yogācārabhūmi, etc.). The objects of maitrī meditation are three, as in the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, but the first, sentient being is related to the practice of Śrāvakas, the second, dharmas is related to the practice of Śrāvakas and Pratyakabuddhas, while the third, objectless maitrī refers to the practice of Bodhisattvas only. The second meditation treatise (T.616) entitled A Basic Explanation of the Methods of Meditation (禅法要解) is about the same length as the previous work. It emphasizes the practice of the eight attainments (samāpattis) as a base for insight meditation. After it supplies a rather detailed description of the practice of the five worldly supernatural powers with a Mahāyāna emphasis on using them for realization of Emptiness. The treatise starts with a brief reminder of 48 (4) Bhante Dhammadipa
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