 Title
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Preface
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 Chapter 1: Pramuditā
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Chapter 2: Vimalā
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Chapter 3: Prabhākarī
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Chapter 4: Arciṣmatī
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Chapter 5: Sudurjayā
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Chapter 6: Abhimukhī
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Chapter 7: Dūraṃgamā
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Chapter 8: Acalā
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Chapter 9: Sādhumatī
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Chapter 10: Dharmameghā
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Chapter 11: buddhabhūmi
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To encourage intelligent individuals to identify other texts in a similar fashion, it is said:
And thus you should discern the level of the text:
When what is being explained is not reality
But leads one, then the sutra is provisional;
It is definitive if voidness is the theme. (6.97)
Sutras which do not explicitly express interdependent origination through such particular attributes as non-arising and so forth, may be described as aids that help one approach the lack of inherent nature, as when it states:
To counteract attachment to form
You taught about form, saying
‘If the eyes do not apprehend the elements,
How can they apprehend what they give rise to?’1
And from a sutra:
Impermanence means non-existence.2
While they are definitive if the topic matter is emptiness, as found in statements such as the following:
Know that sutras where the Sugata explains
Emptiness are classed as definitive in meaning,
While dharmas where he teaches beings, individuals
And persons are all provisional in meaning.3
And,
All the sutras that I have taught
In the many thousands of realms
Are identical in meaning though the words differ,
But cannot be fully reiterated.
Through contemplating a single item
One will be practicing all.
Of all the many dharmas
Expressed by the myriad buddhas,
Every dharma relates selflessness.
And if anyone skilled in the meaning
Of things studies this point,
The qualities of Buddha will not be hard to find.4
Similar and more extensive presentations on this matter may be found in various sutras such as the noble Akṣayamati.5
To present one stance on this: The snake is an imputation upon the interdependence of a coiled rope, because it isn’t actually there. A real snake is thoroughly established because it is not an imputation. As in this example, inherent nature is an imputation on what is dependently created. And as we find stated:
Inherent natures cannot be fabricated
And do not depend on anything else.6
Hence, inherent essences cannot be created. The apprehended and reflection-like interdependence which is imputed on is the actual fact from the perspective of the buddhas, since it is then no longer an imputation. Directly perceiving the nature itself, without reference to created entities, they realise the actual reality, and are therefore called buddhas.7
Such an understanding of the three natures – the imputed, the dependent and the thoroughly established – as presented here, helps explain the intention of the sutras. When the duality of apprehended and apprehender does not have a reality beyond the dependent nature, it should be considered whether these two can in fact be imputed on the dependent nature. But this digression shall end here, and we now return to the main subject matter.