and make no demands; they are absolutely altruistic attitudes that are produced by oneself and awakened by oneself. Summing up these two ideas, they are called "empathie kindness and unconditional compassion."
The Mahayana system of thought fully extends the Hinayana teachings of discipline, concentration, insight, liberation, and liberated knowledge and insight, to form the stages known as the six ways of transcendence (six paramitas) or the ten ways of transcendence.
The first of the so-called six ways of transcendence is giving. Mahayana thought starts here because all sentient beings create suffering as a result of egotistic and selfish craving. In the Mahayana, all that belongs and pertains to the ego is used to make charitable gifts to satisfy the desires of sentient beings, so as to influence and transform their stinginess and greed.
Giving is divided into three types. The first type is the giving of externals: here, making gifts of material goods, physical life, and so on, is called material giving while making gifts of knowledge, learning, and wisdom is called giving of teaching. The second type is internal giving, which is to make one's own inner mind relinquish all greedy and covetous attitudes. The third type is giving of fearlessness, which means to give all sentient beings peace, security, freedom from fear, spiritual support, and assurance.
The second way of transcendence is discipline, beginning with not killing, not stealing, not abusing sexuality, and not telling lies, and extending to the motivations that arouse the mind, all of which are to be regulated by discipline. The Mahayana rules of discipline are not just rules of conduct and appearance; in reality, they are mental precepts intended to govern the mind completely. For example, if the motive for doing good is to gain a reputation, this is considered in violation of the Mahayana bodhisattva precepts. The subtlety of application is truly such that it cannot be exhausted in a few words.
The third way of transcendence is tolerance. To explain the overall essentials simply according to the Mahayana, two expressions can be used to sum up the "Tolerate what others cannot tolerate, carry out what others cannot carry out." The whole thing starts out from the intention to save the world with kindness and compassion, yet it is necessary to reach the point at which one does not have any idea of tolerance in the inner mind; only then does it count as tolerance.
The fourth way of transcendence is diligence. This means diligently arousing a constant determination, at all times and in all places, to exert effort to seek realization. Therefore, diligence is a companion of the foregoing giving, discipline, and tolerance, as well as of the subsequent meditation and wisdom. Whatever the way of transcendence one is working on, unflagging diligence is necessary. It is a matter of actively doing good, not passively waiting for goodness.
The fifth way of transcendence is meditation concentration. This includes the contents of the four meditations, eight concentrations, and nine successive stages of concentration, fully extending them to where one is in a state of meditation concentration at all times and in all places, in movement and stillness, inside and outside. Even if one ascends to heaven and experiences bliss there, or descends into hell to liberate sentient beings, in all events it is imperative to master oneself by not leaving meditation concentration for so much as a single instant.
The sixth way of transcendence is prajna. Prajna is a Sanskrit word that is translated into Chinese as "wisdom." However, the Chinese word "wisdom" is often associated with intelligence; in Buddhism, intelligence is called "worldly knowledge and discursive intelligence," which comes from keenness of the sense organs, clarity and brilliance of ears and eyes, none of which is adequate to represent the inner wisdom of prajna.
The wisdom of prajna contains five meanings. One is the prajna of the character of reality, which is realization of knowledge of the fundamental substance of the life of myriad beings in the cosmos and the root source of the essence of mind. Second is the prajna of states, which comes from the different states produced by the basic capacity of the essence of mind, and includes the various phenomena of the spiritual world. Third is the prajna of words, which is literary and linguistic genius deriving from the philosophy produced by wisdom. Fourth is the prajna of expedient means, referring to the methods of applying wisdom, including the domain of learned knowledge. Fifth is auxiliary prajna, which is the totality of the virtue deriving from the preceding five ways of transcendence.
The first five ways of transcendence, from giving to meditation, are all bases of the virtues of the intensive Mahayana practice of perfect goodness. By diligent practice of goodness and virtue until one opens up the door by oneself, one arrives at the ultimate fruit of achieving prajna wisdom. Therefore, in the highest attainments of both Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism, emphasis is placed on the liberation of wisdom and the perfection of wisdom; neither depend on blind faith.
By extension of the fulfillment of the six ways of transcendence, making them into means of entering the world to help society and help people, there come to be four additional ways of transcendence. The seventh way of transcendence is skill in means, which are methods of promoting self-help and help for others. The eighth way of transcendence is vowing, which is the eternal infinite power of vows of kindness and compassion for all sentient beings. Therefore, Mahayana bodhisattvas make vows to save the world, with firm promises as expressed by the famous sayings, "Space may have an end, but my vows will have no end," and "As long as hell is not emptied, I promise not to become a Buddha."
The ninth way of transcendence is power, which means producing the great power of determination to help oneself and help others by firm and unshakably faithful commitment. The tenth way of transcendence is knowledge, the great knowledge by which one ultimately arrives at "self enlightenment and enlightenment of others, awareness and action completely fulfilled," and attains the fruit of Buddhahood.
Mahayana Practice
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