A Garland of Profound Advice on The Ways of Seeing Reality ~ by Acarya Padmasambhava of Oddiyana

A Garland of Profound Advice on The Ways of Seeing Reality ~ by Acarya Padmasambhava of Oddiyana
A brief analysis of the ways of seeing reality, spiritual vehicles, and related topics
by
Acarya Padmasambhava of Oddiyana
Translated by
H. E. Khempo Yurmed Tinly Rinpoche
and
Robert Warren Clark
Edited by
Robert Warren Clark
Homage to the Ever Youthful Bhagavan Manjusri and to the Vajra Dharma.
The sentient beings in the worldly realm have countless wrong ways of seeing reality.
However all of these wrong ways can be included within these four viewpoints:
1) The fatuous view of the foolish (phyal ba)
2) The hedonistic view of the worldly (lokayata/rgyang ‘phen pa)
3) The nihilistic view of the materialist (mur thug pa)
4) The heterodox view of the eternalist (tırthika/mu stegs pa).
1) Those who hold the fatuous view are perpetually confused due to their failure to understand that all things arise from a process of cause and effect.
2) Those who hold the hedonistic view of the worldly (lokayata/rgyang ‘phen pa) fail to understand the reality of former and future lives and therefore work only to achieve fame, wealth and power for the present life, relying on worldly formulas and machinations.
3) Those who hold the nihilistic view of the materialist (mur thug pa) reject the principle of cause and effect in regard to all phenomena. They hold to the extreme view of absolute existence and nonexistence whereby all things arise simply by chance. They believe there exists only this one life.
4) Those who hold the heterodox view of the eternalists (tırthika/mu stegs pa) believe in the existence a permanent self which they attribute to all things. Some eternalists hold the view that an effect can exist without relying on a cause. Others assert cause and effect in a perverse
manner. Others assert that a cause can exist without producing an effect.
These are all fundamentally mistaken ways to view reality.
There are two aspects to the Path that lead beyond this world of birth and death:
1) Laksanayana (the Sutra Vehicle)
2) Vajrayana (the Tantric Vehicle).
1) The Sutra Vehicle has three divisions:
a) Sravakayana (the Disciples’ Vehicle)
b) Pratyekabuddhayana (the Solitary Liberation Vehicle)
c) Bodhisattvayana (the Mahayana)
a) The viewpoint of those who follow the Sravakayana is that those who assert heterodox views either exaggerate or underestimate reality (i.e., they misperceive reality by either seeing something that is not there, or failing to see what is there). Those who underestimate reality hold nihilistic views that assert a total lack of any existence. Those who exaggerate reality hold ontological views that falsely attribute existence-like one who sees a rope and thinks it is a snake.
Those who follow the Sravakayana take the view that both consciousness and the minute particles of the four great elements (i.e., earth, water, fire, and air) that make up the material world including the aggregates (form, etc.), the physical senses (eye, ear, etc.), sense elements and sense fields, are all truly and ultimately existent. They also hold that the four aspects of
the ultimate goal are gradually achieved by means of meditation on the Four Truths of the firyas (i.e., misery, cause, cessation and path).
b) Just like the followers of the Sravakayana, those who follow the Pratyekabuddhayana (Solitary Liberation Vehicle) take the view that phenomena do not exist in the way asserted by heterodox views. That is, they reject views that either exaggerate or underestimate reality, such as the fanciful view that asserts a permanent self or soul.
What distinguishes the Pratyekabuddhayana is the realization that there is no self or soul whatsoever in the phenomena associated with the aggegate of form. In addition, unlike the Sravakas, followers of the Pratyekabuddhayana do not depend upon a spiritual teacher during the period when they attain their goal of enlightenment. They do depend upon the power of their former familiarity, practice and study to realize the profound meaning of ultimate reality (dharmata) from the point of view of the twelve links of dependent arising. Based upon this realization, they attain their goal of enlightenment.
Those who follow the Bodhisattvayana (Mahayana) take the view that the ultimate reality of all phenomena, whether afflictive or purified, is their lack of inherent existence. They view conventional truth as the lack of confusion among the defining characteristics of individual phenomena whose existence is merely an illusion. In this manner, they assert that supreme
enlightenment occurs at the conclusion of a gradual procession through the ten bodhisattva grounds, which results from engagement in the ten paramitas.
(EXCERPT FROM TEXT)
~~~
For the benefit of numberless sentient beings.

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