འཕགས་པ་དགངས་པ་ངས་པར་འགྲལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད intro.23

intro.23

The Buddha then explains how one attends to phenomenal appearances in an increasingly nonconceptual way. He also gives an elucidation of the analytical knowledge of designations (dharma­prati­saṃvid) and their objects (artha­prati­saṃvid) attained through the practice of mental stillness and insight. In this context, a few key definitions are given; for example, the true reality of representations is that all conditioned phenomena are mere representations (see ). When presented in four aspects, the analytical knowledge of designations and their objects encapsulate the entire path through the four stages of mental appropriation, experience, affliction, and purification. When asked about the nature of gnosis, the Buddha answers that it “consists in the mental stillness and insight that take a universal teaching as a referential object” while “perception consists in the mental stillness and insight that take a specific teaching as a referential object” (see ). Practically, bodhisattvas direct their attention to true reality, discarding the phenomenal appearances of designations and objects of designation. Without taking any essential characteristic as a referential object, they do not pay attention to phenomenal appearances. Their attention is focused on that which is of a single character within all phenomena. The Buddha then gives a list of all the phenomenal appearances eliminated by emptiness, from the emptiness of all phenomena up to the emptiness of emptiness. By letting go of their object of concentration, the phenomenal appearance corresponding to a mental image, bodhisattvas free themselves from the bonds of conditioned phenomenal appearances (nimitta). Connecting these instructions on meditative practice with his teaching on the three defining characteristics, the Buddha explains that he taught the defining characteristic of emptiness in the Great Vehicle as the nonexistence and nonperception of an imaginary defining characteristic with regard to both affliction and purification in the other-dependent and actual defining characteristics of phenomena.