Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 21.djvu/315

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xiii.
PEACEFUL LIFE.
267

superior or mean, composed or uncomposed, real or not real;

17. When the wise man does not remark, 'This is a woman/ nor marks, 'This is a man;' when in searching he finds no laws (or things), because they have never existed;

18. This is called the observance 1 of the Bodhisattvas in general. Now listen to me when I set forth what should be their proper sphere.

19. All laws (i.e. the laws, the things) have been declared to be non-existing, not appearing, not produced, void, immovable, everlasting; this is called the proper sphere of the wise.

20. They have been divided into existing and non-existing, real and unreal, by those who had wrong notions; other laws also, of permanency, of being produced, of birth from something already produced2, are wrongly assumed.

21. Let (the Bodhisattva) be concentrated in mind, attentive, ever firm as the peak of Mount Sumeru, and in such a state (of mind) look upon all laws (and things) as having the nature of space[1],

22. Permanently equal to space, without essence, immovable, without substantiality 4 . These, indeed, are the laws, all and for ever. This is called the proper sphere of the wise.

23. The monk observing this rule of conduct given by me may, after my extinction, promulgate this Sfltra in the world, and shall feel no depression.

24. Let the sage first, for some time, coerce his

Akra.

Gatada bhtiti (Sansk. gatad bhtih).

Satyena; in the margin tman.


  1. I. e. as being void.