How does a Buddha’s mind look like? It has uncountable and wondrous qualities. Here are some of them.
By Khenpo Tashi
A ‘sentient being’ is any being with a ‘mind’. Any mind has three functions – to think, to feel and to act. All sentient beings have these three functions.
Meanwhile, for a Buddha, these three functions are called the Three Classifications of the Buddha’s Enlightened qualities. These three are Knowledge, Compassion and Strength rooted in his Buddha-mind (Tib: khyen tse nu sum). For an ordinary sentient being, the mind can think, feel and act. For the Buddha, these three acts are called Knowledge, Compassion and Strength.
These Buddha qualities are great because they are unlimited, unsurpassed and “true”. We can remember these three qualities when gazing at any Buddha statue or Buddhist text on the shrine.
Knowledge
An ant, a dog, and a human can think. However, their capacities for thinking differ greatly. Even among humans, our capacities for thinking can vary widely. Amongst the highly educated humans, only some can plan and think for a whole country. The rest of us simply cannot.
Meanwhile, the Buddha’s knowledge is unexcelled (Tib.: la na me pa), meaning that there is nothing beyond it. It is categorized into two aspects.
The first type of knowledge is “knowing all of the world’s conditions and situations” (Tib.: ji nye pe khyen pa). Using this knowledge,
- he sees each and every sentient being in the vastness of space, stuck in all forms of sufferings due to their own self-cherishing
- he performs all kinds of activities, just how a magician performs magic and illusion, according to these beings’ respective mental states. This is the essence of the fully-developed discriminative knowledge, precise and limitless
- his wisdom meets whoever is forlorn and whoever needs to be tamed, day and night, continuously, at the exact moment, without any advances or delays. This wisdom is fully focused on the welfare of others
The second knowledge is “knowing the ultimate truth of all things” (Tib.: ji ta we khyen pa). This is the truth seen by the three types of Enlightened beings – the Shravakayana arhat, the Pratyekabuddha and the Samyaksambuddha. It is also called the ‘ultimate truth’ in Buddhism.
Compassion
Due to the quality of compassion within an ant’s mind, it can take care of its colony, its offsprings, and the offsprings of other ants too. Isn’t this surprising for a being with a very little brain? For humans, we can care for other nations and for people who we do not know. For Bodhisattvas, they can extend this empathy and care to all sentient beings.
The Buddha’s compassion is called thuk je (Tib.), or “king of all Buddhas’ minds”. The Buddha’s compassion:
- acts as a charioteer, one who drives horse carts, that leads all Samsaric beings from the abyss of hopelessness and pain to places of temporary and lasting liberation
- does not discipline these beings like a king who imposes strict and painful punishments. Instead, it binds any and every being who has entered the path to some form of liberation. To those who are ready to abandon non-virtue, he teaches the path of the ten virtues. To those who are yearning for the Hinayana, he reveals the Hinayana teachings and so on
- can be categorized into the Four Immeasurables – limitless loving-kindness, compassion, joy and equanimity
Strength
The function of strength includes the physical, mental, psychological aspects and beyond.
For example, an ant can carry an item 5,000 times that of its body weight. Humans cannot do this with their bodies. However, humans can invent machines that do the same work. Some humans can withstand great mental stress and pressure. Celestial beings can hold thunderbolts in their hands or destroy an entire city just through their wrath.
Meanwhile, the strength of the Buddha lies in his mind. Through his wisdom, he possesses the ten strengths (Tibetan: tob chu).
- knowing what is correct and incorrect
- knowing the results of actions
- knowing the aspirations of beings
- knowing all the elements
- knowing the different capacities of beings
- knowing all the paths
- knowing all the different ways to establish meditative concentration
- knowing previous lives of oneself and others
- the knowledge of the cycle of past births, death and future rebirth
- knowing that the defilements are exhausted or knowing the path and result
These three qualities – Knowledge, Compassion and Strength – are what any and all Buddhas possess.
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Translated and adapted from the Tibetan text:
A Commentary on the ‘Remembering the Triple Gems Sutra’, དཀོན་མཆོག་གསུམ་རྗེས་སུ་དྲན་པའི་མདོ་རྣམ་པར་འགྲེལ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་མི་ཟད་པའི་སྒྲ་དབྱངས་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་བཞུགས་སོ།