With the aim to compose an introduction (avatāra) to the Middle Way (madhyamaka) that may help one access (avatāra) the Middle Way Treatise, it seemed appropriate to present at first a praise to the illustrious lady Great Compassion, the perfect cause of buddhahood and characterised by being the complete protection for all the untold numbers of defenceless sentient beings without exception trapped in the prison of cyclic existence, even before praising the true and complete buddhas and the bodhisattvas. Hence, I expressed two stanzas, this and the following one:

From mighty sages hearers and half-buddhas come,
While buddhas from the bodhisattvas are conceived.
Compassion, non-duality, awakening mind –
These are what serve as causes of the victor’s heirs. (1.1)

The illustrious buddhas are here termed mighty sages (munīndra) because they possess perfect mastery as unsurpassed lords of Dharma, are also perfect supreme lords over the hearers, solitary buddhas and bodhisattvas, and because the hearers and so forth are governed by their command. From them the hearers and so forth come, meaning that they are born from them. How so? Due to the fact that, when buddhas appear and teach the unmistaken ways of dependent origination, they engage with that teaching through the stages of learning, contemplation and meditation, and according to their particular propensities will then actualise the final complete result of the hearers and so forth.

For some it may be that, although they do become erudite, realising the ultimate truth through just listening to the teachings on interdependent origination, they do not attain transcendence in their present existence. Although this might be the case, those who practice what is taught will without doubt attain it in a future lifetime when the result of their yearning ripens, in the same way that the ripening of karma will definitely come to fruition. As Āryadeva states:

When reality is understood, though here
They may not reach transcendence,
They will certainly attain it effortlessly
In another lifetime, just as with karma.¹

That is also why the Middle Way Treatise states:

When the complete buddhas do not appear
And the hearers as well are no more,
The wisdom of the solitary buddhas
Will be actualised independently.²

They are called hearers (śrāvaka) because they facilitate attainment of the result of the instructions: ‘It has been completed. After this I will not know another existence.’ Alternatively, they are hearers because they hear (śrutvā) about the supreme result or the path of unsurpassed true and complete awakening from the tathāgatas, and then proclaim (śrāvaṇatva) it to those who aspire to it. Just as the White Lotus of Sacred Dharma Sutra states:

Protector, today we have become hearers,
And will now proclaim supreme awakening.
We will clarify the awakening statements.
Thus we are like the formidable hearers.³

Although bodhisattvas also fit this description, the hearers proclaim it without actually practicing in accord with it, which is not the case for bodhisattvas.

The term buddha, awakened to reality, applies to all three: hearers, solitary buddhas and unsurpassed true and complete buddhas. Hence, the term buddha is here used to refer to solitary buddhas. These surpass the hearers due to their comparatively excellent development of merit and wisdom, but are inferior to the true and complete buddhas as they lack their accumulation of merit and wisdom, great compassion, two types of omniscience and so on. Hence, they are half-. They are solitary buddhas (pratyekabuddha) since they develop wisdom without being taught and gain awakening solely for themselves. As has been explained, the hearers and solitary buddhas are from mighty sages … come, in the sense that they originate from the tathāgatas teaching the Dharma.

From where then, are the mighty sages born? As stated, while buddhas from the bodhisattvas are conceived. But aren’t the bodhisattvas described as children of the victor because they too are born from the teachings of the tathāgatas? Why then is it said that that the illustrious buddhas are born from bodhisattvas? That is indeed true. Still, there are two reasons why the bodhisattvas are considered the cause for the illustrious buddhas: because they are the particular circumstance and because they inspire the adoption.

That they are the particular circumstance means that that which acts as the cause for the circumstance of being a tathāgata is the circumstance of being a bodhisattva. That they inspire the adoption refers to the case of noble Mañjuśrī who as a bodhisattva was the very first to inspire the illustrious Śākyamuni and the other tathāgatas to adopt the mind of awakening. Being thus regarded as the principal cause that enabled the final result, it is taught that the tathāgatas are born from the bodhisattvas.

Bodhisattvas are therefore to be esteemed, since it is recognised that they are the immensely valuable perfect cause; since expressing veneration for the cause automatically implies veneration also for the result; since the blessed buddhas teach that just as when a great medicinal tree that will definitely yield limitless fruits is still at the stage of a sprout and so on, and its leaves are tender, one must take care to protect it; and since the multitudes of sentient beings they encounter that have a predilection for the three vehicles will with certainty be impelled towards the Greater Vehicle.

As stated in the noble Heap of Jewels Sutra:

Kāśyapa, it is like when honour is shown to the new moon and not the full moon. Just so, Kāśyapa, should those who have faith in me pay homage to the bodhisattvas, not to the tathāgatas. Why? Because it is from bodhisattvas that the tathāgatas arise. And from the tathāgatas all the hearers and solitary buddhas arise.⁴

With this, it has been established through reasoning and scripture that the tathāgatas are born from the bodhisattvas.

What then is the cause of the bodhisattvas? As was stated: compassion, non-duality, awakening mind – these are what serve as causes of the victor’s heirs. Compassion means sympathy (anukampā), and its aspects and nature will be explained. Non-dual mind is the intelligence that is free from the two extremes of entities, absence of entities and so forth.

The awakening mind is described in the noble Omnipresent Dharmas Sutra:

Through the mind of awakening the bodhisattva will come to understand all dharmas: that all dharmas are equal in the dharmadhātu. All dharmas, being adventitious and unstable, are empty of something to be known and a knower. When within this mere recognition a bodhisattva gives rise to the sentiment of thinking that, ‘All beings must reach the recognition that this is the nature of things,’ that is what we call the awakening mind of the bodhisattva. It is the mind that aims for the benefit and happiness of all beings; that aims for the unsurpassed; a tender mind of love; an irreversible mind of compassion; a joyous mind that knows no regret; an equanimous mind without stains; an unchanging mind of emptiness; an unobscured mind not encumbered by labelling; a non-abiding mind free from aspirations.⁵

That the principal causes of the bodhisattvas are these three – compassion, non-dual intelligence and the mind of awakening – is expressed in the Precious Garland:

Its roots are the mind of awakening
Firm as the king of mountains,
Compassion without prejudice
And wisdom not tied to duality.⁶

Since compassion is the very root of the mind of awakening and wisdom of non-duality, the following was stated with the wish to illustrate the preeminence of compassion:

Since love is like the seed for the abundant crop
Of victorhood, is like the water for its growth,
Like maturation for its yield to then endure,
It’s therefore that I praise compassion first of all. (1.2)

Just as seeds, water and the process of ripening are the essential prerequisites in the beginning, middle and end respectively for a perfect harvest of grains and so forth on the outer level, it is compassion that is said to be the very prerequisite in the three periods for the perfect harvest of the victors. Likewise, when others are experiencing the suffering of suffering, a compassionate individual wanting to protect all suffering sentient beings without exception, will develop the firm resolve: ‘I must by all means deliver this world from suffering and bring it to the state of buddhahood.’ And since one will not be able to bring this commitment to fruition if one has discarded the wisdom of non-duality, it is essential to engage in it through the wisdom of non-duality. Thus, the seed of all the qualities of buddhahood is compassion. As stated in the Precious Garland:

What rational individual would disparage
The Greater Vehicle which teaches
Compassion as the prerequisite of all
And wisdom that is free from stains?⁷

Though the mind of awakening has been generated, if one has not repeatedly moistened it with the water of compassion, preparations for the vast fruition will not be accumulated, and one will inevitably transcend to the nirvana of hearers and solitary buddhas. And, although one may reach the state of the boundless fruition, without fully ripened compassion this will not become a lasting resource, and the unbroken one-to-one lineage of the great assembly of noble fruition will not flourish for long.

Now, to clarify the distinctive forms of compassion according to how they relate to particular objects, I wished to express this as an homage:

At first, the though of ‘I’ and clinging to a self;
Then ‘This is mine’ as they become attached to things.
I bow to that compassion which sees every life
As powerless as buckets on a water-wheel. (1.3)

In the world, self-clinging develops before the clinging of ownership, as one imputes the idea ‘it exists’ onto a non-existent self and ends up clinging to it as real. And then, with the thought, ‘This is mine,’ clinging to all other objects not included within this self-clinging comes.

The worldly state of clinging to self and mine is (1) to be tightly bound by the ropes of karma and afflictions; (2) to be reliant on the movements of consciousness, the operator of the machinery; (3) to be ceaselessly rambling through the depths of the great well of cyclic existence, from its peak to the Incessant hell; (4) to descend effortlessly of one’s own accord but having to be drawn up with great effort; (5) not to be following a fixed order of prior, latter and middling components when it comes to the torments (saṃkleśa) of afflictions, such as ignorance, of karma and of birth; and (6) to each day be battered by the suffering of suffering and the suffering of change – and hence to never transcend this water-wheel condition. Since the bodhisattva, motivated by immense compassion for those tormented by suffering, develops the wish to protect them, homage is offered to the illustrious lady great compassion before anything else. This is the compassion of the bodhisattvas that is focussed on sentient beings.

To illustrate what the compassion focussed on dharmas and without a focus relate to, it was stated:

Just like the moon reflected in a rippling pond,
They see them waver, empty of inherent being.

To this one should add the line, ‘I bow to such compassion.’ In a pool of limpid water slightly rippled by a mild breeze, the image of the moon keeps breaking up on the surface of what supports its reflection, and the combination of these two is visible as a clearly perceptible thing. The supreme ones see that these two facets illustrate the nature of things, namely moment-by-moment impermanence and absence of intrinsic nature. In the same way, bodhisattvas governed by compassion see that beings dwelling in the vast blue water of ignorance filling the ocean of the view of identity (satkāyadṛṣṭi) stirred by the winds of mistaken concepts, appearing in front of them as reflections of their individual karma, moment-by-moment encounter the suffering of impermanence and are empty of inherent existence. The bodhisattvas then develop the wish to help them fully attain the state of awakening, which is like the annihilator of the suffering of impermanence they undergo with respect to these two facts; which is a perfect source of the nectar of the sublime Dharma; which is characterised by a total reversal of all mistaken concepts; and is the true friend of all the world.⁸ Having bowed to their compassion focussed on sentient beings, focussed on dharmas and without a focus …