འཕགས་པ་འཇམ་དཔལ་གནས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.7

intro.7

In the first half of the sūtra, Mañjuśrī criticizes various presuppositions underlying Śāriputra’s conceptual understanding of concentration and its role in spiritual practice (), the past, present, and future (, ), comprehension (), and the “dwelling place” of an arhat (). Although difficult to verify, the presuppositions of Śāriputra may well represent the mainstream Buddhist understandings of a person following the Abhidharma of the Sarvāstivādin ordination lineage, particularly Śāriputra’s advocacy of the practice of standing firm in the past, present, and future. According to Pekar Sangpo, the concise meaning of this part of the sūtra is that Śāriputra is taught, as a response to Mañjuśrī’s questions, the emptiness that by nature is free from the conceptual fabrication of anything.¹⁶