འཕགས་པ་དགངས་པ་ངས་པར་འགྲལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 54

54

“What is insight arising from awakening?”

“It is the insight in which attention is directed on whatever phenomena one perfectly understood by means of wisdom in order to attain the happiness of liberation.”

“How many kinds of mental stillness are there?”

“There are three kinds of mental stillness corresponding to the unimpeded mind. Maitreya, it is also said to be of eight kinds: the first, second, third, and fourth meditative absorptions, the domain of the infinity of space, the domain of infinite cognition, the domain of nothingness, and the domain of neither conception nor lack of conception. It is also of four kinds: immeasurable loving-kindness, immeasurable compassion, immeasurable joy, and immeasurable equanimity.”

“Blessed One, you have mentioned ‘mental stillness and insight that are established in Dharma’ and ‘mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma.’ What do these terms mean?”

“Maitreya, the mental stillness and insight that are established in Dharma are the mental stillness and insight whose object is in agreement with phenomenal appearance as presented in the teachings that bodhisattvas have understood and contemplated.

“You should know that the mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma are the mental stillness and insight whose object, being unrelated to the teachings that bodhisattvas have understood and contemplated, is based on other instructions or precepts, such as taking as referential objects putrefying or festering corpses as well as any other similar objects, the impermanence of all conditioned phenomena, the suffering [inherent to all conditioned phenomena], the selflessness of all phenomena, and nirvāṇa as the state of peace.¹⁸⁹

“Maitreya, regarding this, I consider those bodhisattvas who follow the teaching based on the mental stillness and insight established in Dharma to possess sharp faculties. As for those faithfully following the teaching based on the mental stillness and insight that are not established in Dharma, I consider them to possess inferior faculties.”