The Eightfold Nature of Profundity

The Eightfold Nature of Profundity

by Jamyang Khyentse Chökyi Lodrö

Concerning the eight aspects of the profound nature of reality (dharmatā), the Ornament says:

Profundity is due to arising and ceasing,
Suchness and the knowable,
Knowing, activity, non-duality,
And skill in means.[1]

Without relying on these profundities it is difficult to attain awakening, so there is profundity of interdependence. Profundity through cessation means that merely by virtue of the mind’s having arisen it is oriented towards cessation, and therefore has the nature of profundity through ceasing. The profundity of suchness is the non-conceptual domain, the genuine nature of phenomena, suchness, just as it is. The profundity of the knowable is the mind that is none other than suchness. The profundity of knowing is the non-seeing of suchness by means of suchness. The profundity of activity means non-activity, since it is by not acting at all that one who abides by the perfection of wisdom trains in the profound transcendent perfection of wisdom. The profundity of non-duality refers to non-dual engagement with ultimate activity and the bodhisattva’s non-engagement with the conditioning factors of signs and the signless. The profundity of skill in means refers to the fact that when the ten strengths and so on up to the eighteen unshared attributes of a buddha are not perfected, there is no unsurpassable enlightenment to be attained, and therefore skill in means prevents any real or as unreal activity. Moreover, by knowing that the characteristic of all phenomena is emptiness, one becomes skilled in adversity, introducing beings who are caught up in it to its remedy, and ripening sentient beings.

| Translated (provisionally) by Adam Pearcey with the generous support of the Khyentse Foundation and Terton Sogyal Trust, 2021.

Bibliography

Tibetan Edition

'Jam dbyangs chos kyi blo gros, “zab mo'i chos nyid rnam brgyad/“ in 'Jam dbyangs chos kyi blo gros kyi gsung 'bum. 12 vols. Bir: Khyentse Labrang, 2012. W1KG12986 Vol. 9: 83–84

Version: 1.0-20211123