Sacred Texts: Buddhism

A Buddhist Bible: The Lankavatara Sutra: Chapter IX. The Fruit of Self- Realisation

Dwight GoddardTaoism and ZenZen Buddhism

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This is an excerpt from the *Lankavatara Sutra*, a foundational Mahayana Buddhist scripture in the Yogacara (Mind-Only) tradition, structured as a dialogue between the Buddha and the Bodhisattva Mahamati. The text addresses three interconnected questions: what fruits arise from self-realisation of Noble Wisdom, how the Tathagatas sustain Bodhisattvas on the path, and how the six Paramitas (charity, good behavior, patience, zeal, mindfulness, wisdom) are to be understood and practiced at progressively deeper levels of spiritual development. A central claim is that the Tathagatas actively transmit sustaining power to earnest practitioners — not merely as inspiration but as a necessary, enabling force without which even disciplined seekers would relapse into lower attainments. The treatment of the Paramitas is notably graduated: at the worldly level they are ethical ideals, at the mental level they deepen into inward discipline and intuition, and at the highest level they dissolve into non-discriminating, effortless compassion in which distinctions between self and other, good and evil, cease to function. The text also introduces the concept of the *manomayakaya* (mind-vision body), a transcendental form Bodhisattvas assume through advanced Samadhi, capable of appearing instantly across Buddha-lands. Readers interested in Mahayana soteriology, the mechanics of awakening, or the philosophical interplay between consciousness, compassion, and non-duality will find this directly relevant.

A Buddhist Bible: The Lankavatara Sutra: Chapter IX. The Fruit of Self- Realisation

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