འཕགས་པ་དགངས་པ་ངས་པར་འགྲལ་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བ་ཐག་པ་ཆན་པའ་མད 8

8

arisen from vikalpa, this illusion-like nimitta of saṃskāra exists; this which bewilders the mind exists!' Thinking thus, they do not, exactly as they have seen and heard, obstinately cling to it as supreme, grasp onto it, and subsequently apply conventional designations declaring: 'Only this is true; anything else is false!' Instead, they apply conventional designations solely in order to communicate the meaning. Later, they will not need to examine this closely. Son of good family, in this way, the noble ones awaken to that entity in an ineffable manner through noble jñāna and noble vision; and in order to cause that very ineffable dharmatā to be fully realized, it is given the names 'conditioned' and 'unconditioned.' Then, on that occasion, the bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata spoke these verses: / Although the Victorious One taught that the profound, which is beyond the reach of the immature, / Is ineffable and non-dual, / These immature, bewildered, and ignorant ones / Delight in the proliferation of speech and dwell in duality. / Those who fail to realize it or conceptualize it wrongly / Are reborn even as sheep and cattle; / Having abandoned that speech of knowledge, / They will wander in this saṃsāra for an exceedingly long time. / This is the first chapter, on the Bodhisattva Paramārthasamudgata. Then the bodhisattva Dharmodgata addressed the Bhagavān: 'Bhagavān, in a time long past, beyond as many lokadhātus from here as there are grains of sand in seventy-seven Gaṅgā rivers, in the buddhakṣetra called Prasiddhā belonging to the Tathāgata Prasiddhakīrti, when I was residing there, I saw seventy-seven hundred thousand tīrthikas, along with their respective teachers, assembled and gathered together in one place, starting out to deliberate on the ultimate lakṣaṇa of dharmas.