འཕགས་པ་འཇག་རྟན་འཛན་གྱས་ཡངས་ས་དྲས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.6

intro.6

Over the course of the sūtra, which is divided into twelve chapters, the Buddha presents the following topics: the five aggregates, the eighteen elements, the twelve sense sources, the twelve links of dependent origination, the four applications of mindfulness, the five powers, the eightfold path of the noble ones, the phenomena of the world and transcendence, and conditioned and unconditioned phenomena. These subjects provide an important explanatory framework for the functioning of existence and the path to awakening from the Abhidharma point of view. Although some explanation of each topic is given, the sūtra clearly assumes the reader’s familiarity with Abhidharma theory. Moreover, rather than offering a traditional explanation of these topics, the Buddha consistently explains their lack of identifying marks (Skt. animitta), meaning that despite their conventional designations, the phenomena in question do not in actuality have any true or real referents. The Buddha states that these topics are normally taught purely for the expedient purpose of guiding childish ordinary beings (i.e., not the followers of the Great Vehicle) along the path; however, on the ultimate level, the individual characteristics that these phenomena seem to possess due to the interdependent process of causation cannot be found. These subjects are taught merely to provide students with useful classifications that ultimately must lead them beyond such ontological categories. By contrast, this sūtra’s theme is the absence of marks of all phenomena, one of the three gateways of liberation, which also include emptiness and the absence of wishes. As such, the sūtra represents a clear critique of the traditional vehicle of the hearers and a forceful affirmation of the superiority of the perspective of the Great Vehicle.