Kadampa Precepts 2.

- note: The list below beginning 'Atisa replied' gives both the earlier translation and then the more recent translation in italics, with a few lines at the end that are only in the recent translation

At another time Atisa was asked by Ku, Noke and Drom, "What is the highest teaching of the
path'?"

Atisa replied, 
The highest Skill is in the realization of egolessness. 
The best learning is realizing the truth of no-self
The highest Nobility is in subduing your own mind.
The best discipline is taming your mindstream
The highest Excellence is in having a mind which seeks to help others.
The best excellence is to have great alrtuism
The highest Precept is continual mindfulness.
The best instruction is the  constant observation of your mind
The highest Remedy is in understanding the naturelessness of everything.
The best antidote is the recognition that everything is devoid of intrinsic existence
The highest Activity is not to conform with worldly concerns.
The best conduct is being at variance with the mundane world
The highest siddhi is the lessening and transmutation of the passions.
The best higher attainment is the lessening of your mental afflictions
The best sign of higher attainment is a decrease in your attachment 
The highest Giving is found in non attachment.
The best giving is the absence of possessiveness
The highest Moral Practice is a peaceful mind.
The best morality is a tranquil mind
The highest Patience is humility.
The best forbearance is to uphold humility
The highest Effort is to abandon attachment to activities.
The best joyful perseverance is to be able to let bo of the endeavor
The highest Meditation is the mind without pretension.
The best meditation is the uncontrived mind
The highest Wisdom is not to grasp anything as it appears.
 The best wisdom is to make no identification of 'I am' with anything

The best spiritual teacher is to challenge your weaknesses
The best instruction is to strike at your very own shortcomings
The best friends are mindfulness and introspective awareness
The best motivating factors are your enemies, obstacles, illness and sufferings
The best skilful means is to be free of apprehensions
The best beneficial deed is to help someone enter the Dharma
The best help given is to turn someone's thoughts to the Dharma

"And what is the final goal of the Teaching?" the three disciples asked.

Atisa replied, "The final goal of the Teaching is possession of the essence of Voidness and Compassion. Just as, in the world, there is a panacea for all sickness called the Solitary Heroic Medicine, there is the realization of Voidness which remedies all the fettering passions."

There is just one comment here. 'The essence of Voidness and compassion', this represents a statement or a description of the goal, the final goal of the teaching, which subsequently became very important for Tibetan Buddhism. It is in these terms that Tibetan Buddhists always, in one way or another, think of the final goal. 'the realization of the essence of Voidness and Compassion. With Sunyata on the one hand and Karuna on the other. Or one can say, the final goal as the union, on the highest level, of Wisdom and Compassion. Or Wisdom and Skilful means, sometimes it is said. And this is, of course, the significance of the, so called sexual symbolism in which you get a male and a female Buddha figure in sexual union. It is the essence of Voidness united with the essence of Compassion. This is the final goal, this is the highest goal. 

So why do you think it is said, ' the highest meditation is the mind without pretension'? It suggests the completely unified mind, the completely integrated mind. When you don't pretend even to yourself. Some people are not even themselves with their own selves. Do you know what I mean? That they act even in the inner recesses of their own mind, they even act to themselves. So one could say that this is what is meant by pretension. So, 'the highest meditation is the mind without pretension. 

I think this word accepting is a bit open to misconstruction because acceptance is too positive a word to  use in connection with unskilful mental states. You shouldn't accept them. To recognize them is quite enough. 

"But many say they have realized Voidness. Why do their anger and attachment remain?'
"They are speaking empty words, for when you fully realize the meaning of Voidness, your
body, speech, and mind react with pleasure, like slipping fresh butter into barley soup. The
great sage Aryadeva said: “The nature of existence. Is it empty or not? Merely feeling this
doubt tears samsara asunder.” Therefore, when you realize the correct meaning of
Voidness, it is just like the Solitary Heroic Medicine, for all of the path is included in that
realization."

He is saying that if you even feel this doubt, even if you wonder whether conditioned existence is void or not, not to speak of realizing the Voidness, even to wonder whether existence might not all be void; even this produces tremendous effects. Even to feel this doubt tears samsara asunder, not to speak of the effects of realizing the Voidness. This is what he is saying. There should be tremendous positive effects. Just to suspect that this whole seemingly solid, phenomenal world, is in fact void. Even this can cause the whole foundations of your being to shake. Not to speak of realizing the Voidness. This is why he quotes that little verse. 
It is what Walt Whitman calls 'the terrible doubt of appearances'. Doubting whether the appearances are real after all, as you had thought hitherto. When you feel the ground slipping from beneath your feet 

"How do you include the entire path within the realization of Voidness?" the disciples asked.

'All of the path is included in the Six Paramitas. When you realize the correct meaning of
Voidness - and lose your blind lust for all things, material and spiritual - your life becomes
one flowing act of transcendent Giving. In the absence of attachment, you are no longer
defiled by non virtuous deeds, and you enter the ever-flowing harmony of transcendent
Moral Practice. In this freedom from defilement, you also liberate yourself from the
passionate domination of 'I' and 'mine', and attain the ever-flowing transcendent Patience.
As you take great pleasure in the realization of Voidness, your life becomes one ever-flowing transcendent Effort. Through this, you lose all attraction to objects and enter the ever-flowing transcendent Meditation. And finally, when your mind is freed from the habit of seeing everything through the prism of three aspects,' you will attain the ever-flowing transcendent Wisdom."

The important point is that it is said in the Mahayana that thought the Six Paramitas are called the Six Paramitas strictly speaking it is only Prajna which is a Paramita. Now what is meant by that? Just take the example of giving. You can be very generous, you can practice the height of generosity but it is not necessarily the Perfection of Generosity. It is not necessarily Dana Paramita. It is Dana Paramita only when it is dissociated from ego sense. In other words Dana becomes a Paramita only in association with Prajna, otherwise it is just Dana; which is very good and very positive and certainly a foundation for the development of Prajna but it is not in itself a Paramita. It becomes a Paramita only in association with Prajna, and by Prajna is, of course, meant realization of Voidness, Sunyata 

In fact this is sometimes said, that the Buddha has a twofold accumulation,sambhara is the word for accumulation. An accumulation of Jnana and an accumulation of punya. Punya can be regarded as the highest possible development, the perfection of the positive mundane, the perfection of conditioned existence. And Jnana, of course, represents the unconditioned. So the Buddha has got both, this is quite important to realize, we don'talways appreciate this. That the idea of Buddhahood represents the union of the perfection of the mundane with the transcendental. This is why the Buddha and the Bodhisattva, for instance iconographically are represented as in the prime of life. As well built, well proportioned, healthy, heroic and so on. This suggests the perfection of the mundane even on the physical level. And united with that the transcendental. 
So you can say the Chakravatiraja, the Universal monarch represents the perfection of the mundane entirely dissociated from any transcendental realization, entirely dissociated from Enlightenment. But the Universal monarch looks exactly like the Buddha, but it isn't the Buddha. When the Buddha attains Buddhahood the Universal monarch, as it were, becomes informed with Buddhahood, but externally looks just the same 
In other words it is the path of regular steps. Of course there is a path of irregular steps and you may get just a little glimpse of the void without any Dana, sila and so on, but you can't sustain it. It comes and it goes and it can even have a slightly shattering effect 

But it is not just that that one seed has been planted, sure it is perhaps, but there are hundreds and thousands of seeds being planted all the time. It becomes rather difficult to tell which seed is really going to sprout eventually. If there is only that particular seed being planted well yes, very likely it would sprout, eventually, but there are millions of other seeds being planted too. 

Is it possible for one who realizes the meaning of Voidness to attain Buddhahood with only
the wisdom and meditation of Voidness?" a disciple asked.
Atisa replied, "Whatever you perceive, whatever you proclaim - there is nothing that has not come from your own mind. Understand that this realization of mind is empty. Understanding the non duality of the realization of mind and of Voidness is wisdom. Meditation is the continuous concentration on this wisdom without any distraction. Deeds are accumulating merit and wisdom while you realize from the viewpoint of this meditation that everything is like an illusion. Once you are under the influence of these three, their practice will come even in dreams. Once it has come in dreams, it will come at the moment of death. When it comes at the moment of death, it will be present in the Bardo. Once it is present in the Bardo, there is certain to be accomplishment of the Superior Siddhi, and you will become a Buddha."

Atisa gets the questioner from a purely theoretical Prajna, or a more or less theoretical Prajna and he points out that Prajna can only be realized by realizing that the mind is empty. But this you realize only in meditation and once you have realized that then meditation becomes a transcendental meditation and action or deeds become a transcendental action or deeds. So it is the same pattern, do you see this? So when Atisa says, 'there is nothing that does not come from your own mind. Understand that this realization of mind is empty. Understanding the non-duality of the realization of mind', he is putting him on the path of regular steps. And then from then onwards, realization of Voidness, 'Meditation as the continuous concentration on this wisdom' , 'Deeds as accumulating merit and wisdom while realizing from the viewpoint of this meditation that everything is an illusion', that is the descending phase, as it were. So there is the ascending phase and the descending phase, corresponding to the mundane Eightfold path and the transcendental Eightfold Path. Or the Paramitas before the realization of Prajna and the Paramitas after the realization of Prajna. 

Yes, it's not that you complete the whole of the ascending phase at one go and then the whole of the descending phase. You can sort of trickle over into the descending phase before you have really completed the ascending phase. 
Well ascending to Enlightenment, or ascending to wisdom and then descending from that wisdom in the sense that the wisdom manifests at successively, as it were lower levels of your being until it eventually informs everything that you do and everything that you say. 
It transforms, as I said in the Eightfold Path series, it transforms the emotional nature, it transforms the activities, transforms the whole way of life, lifestyle and so on. 

'Deeds are accumulating merit and wisdom while you realize from the viewpoint of this meditation that everything is like an illusion'. In other words bringing the relative truth and the absolute truth together.