The History of Buddhist Thought c24.41

c24.41

6. The sixth stage, *Abhimukhī*, “facing,” is reached through the ten samenesses of things. This list is a statement of the Mahāyāna principle that all particular things are unreal, without a mark, without arising or origin, like the illusion of a dream, etc. But through his compassion he looks at the originating and passing away of the world as if it were real, and meditates on the twelvefold Causal Formula in ten different schemes. But reflecting that there is no self, no creature, no individual, he enters upon the three releases of voidness, signlessness, and aimlessness. These are the characteristics of things in reality, but he retains the ideas of self and other, doer and perceiver, existence and non-existence.