འཕགས་པ་མ་ཏག་ག་ཚགས་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.12

intro.12

The next and much shorter section (–) has Ajita, the paradigmatic bodhisattva, as the Buddha’s interlocutor. Ajita wants to know if there is “some quality that a bodhisattva-mahāsattva can possess to ensure that he or she makes swift and irreversible progress toward unexcelled, perfect and complete awakening.” This question opens up the possibility of a metadiscussion in the sūtra, in which hearing the names of the buddhas is identified as precisely the “single quality” that a bodhisattva-mahāsattva should possess in order to make irreversible progress toward unexcelled, perfect and complete awakening. This is where we see the Buddha use his own personal story to illustrate this point.