Sunday, August 27, 2017

"The five faculties are faith, vigor, mindfulness, concentration, and wisdom. Here what is faith? By this faith one has faith in four dharmas. Which four? He accepts the right view which assumes renewed becoming in the world of birth-and-death; he puts his trust in the ripening of karma, and knows that he will experience the fruit of any karma, that he may have done; even to save his life he does not do any evil deed. He has faith in the mode of life of a Bodhisattva, and, having taken up this discipline, he does not long for any other vehicle. He believes when he hears all the doctrines which are characterized by the true, clear, and profound knowledge of conditioned co-production, by such terms as lack of self, absence of a being, absence of a soul, absence of a person; and by emptiness, the signless and the wishless. He follows none of the false doctrines, and believes in all the qualities (dharmas) of a Buddha, his powers, grounds of self-confidence, and all the rest; and when in his faith he has left behind all doubts, he brings about in himself those qualities of a Buddha. This is known as the virtue of faith. His vigor consists of his bringing about (in himself) the dharmas in which he has faith. His mindfulness consists in his preventing the qualities which he brings about by vigor from being destroyed by forgetfulness. His concentration consists in his fixing his one-pointed attention on these very same qualities. With the faculty of wisdom he contemplates those dharmas on which he has fixed his one-pointed attention, and penetrates to their reality. The cognition of those dharmas which arises in himself and which has no outside condition is called the virtue of wisdom. Thus these five virtues, together, are sufficient to bring forth all the qualities of a Buddha..."
— Akshayamati Sutra (Discourse in Infinite Intellect, quoted in Shantideva's Shikshasamuccaya); translated by Edward Conze

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