Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c8.s10.6

c8.s10.6

On account of his acquiring spontaneously the upāyakauśalyajñāna (knowledge of expedients) and as the result of his efforts to acquire omniscience, he comes to know how and when a world comes into being, continues to exist, and then disappears, and which karma is responsible for it. He understands the smallness, greatness, i.e., every minute detail of the four elements, of the various classes of sentient beings, and their fields of action. Such detailed knowledge is needed by a bodhisattva, because he must appear among those sentient beings just as one of them in order to make them feel that he is same as them and that it is possible for every sentient being to become a Buddha¹.