Ten States in the Development of the Mind 十住心论

Terjemahan Indonesia: Sepuluh Tahap Perkembangan Pikiran

弘法大师 ［十住心论］

Kobo Daishi [Ten States in the Development of the Mind]

Quoting from: 3.12 Ten States in the Development of the Mind

By 830 Kûkai has shifted his interest from an earlier focus upon the controversy between Madhaymaka and Yogâcâra concerning the emptiness or existence of the dharmas and his critique of their view on language as not conveying truth (the Dharma), to evaluating Buddhist doctrines as a whole, including the other major Buddhist schools. This shift is most likely connected to the dispute on-going during that period between the founder of the Tendai school, Saichô, and the older Nara Buddhist schools. In providing a comprehensive scheme that would explain the place of each religious teaching as well as the place of esoteric Buddhism in relation to the other Buddhist doctrines, Kûkai aimed to demonstrate the significance of his version of Buddhism.

In this scheme, Kûkai is adamant in using the above-discussed concepts to distinguish esoteric from exoteric Buddhism. 

And yet, given a bird's eye view, the truth, the Dharma, in Kûkai's scheme is encompassing enough to include exoteric Buddhism and all other teachings as its unfoldings or manifestations, in relative degrees in accordance with the appropriate circumstance or context and the level of attainment. 

In order to explain the different levels or states (jû, literally “dwellings” or “lodgings”) of mind (jûjûshin) that correspond to the various doctrines of other schools and religious sects, Kûkai developed an hierarchical scheme. 

Shingon Buddhism is placed at the top of the hierarchy as providing the most comprehensive view to the Dharma. 

Kûkai provides this systematization in what many consider to be his magnum opus, Himitsu mandara jûjûshinron (Treatise on the Secret Mandala of the Ten States of Mind) in ten volumes, composed around 830, five years before his death. 

It was written in response to an order of Emperor Junna that each Buddhist sect present an introductory treatise of its teachings. 

When the text proved to be too difficult for the emperor, Kûkai produced an abridged and more accessible treatise on the same theme, Hizô hôyaku (Precious Key to the Secret Treasury) in three volumes. 

At the core of both works is this classification of the various doctrines whereby each is critically evaluated under the light of the culminating and most comprehensive view of Shingon. 

A similar sort of system of classifying doctrines, called p’an-chiao (panjiao) or chiao-pan (jiaoban) (Jpn:kyôsô hanjaku or kyô-han) already existed in China, e.g. within the T’ien-t’ai and the Hua-yen traditions. 

Such a system of classification proved helpful in their attempts to distinguish themselves from, and at the same time, incorporate previous doctrines as expedient means that are relatively true. 

The Lotus Sûtra had also already expressed the similar idea that various doctrines were meant as expedient means that lead eventually to a fuller truth (expressed within its own text). 

It is Kûkai's own invention however to associate the different doctrines evaluated and classified with specific states of mind or stages of spiritual attainment. 

That is, each state in the development of the mind is correlated with a specific set of doctrines appropriate to it, as its perspective and lived experience of reality, true to a certain extent within its limited purview but not yet the whole truth until the final state is reached. 

In other words, to move up this hierarchy of levels of mind, is to experience the unfolding of the Dharma as one becomes further awakened until one fully realizes one's enlightenment in non-duality with the Dharma itself, i.e. the attainment of Buddha-hood. 

From a mandalic perspective, this unfolding of the Dharma is also indicative of one's evolution from the periphery towards the center of the mandalic universe. 

However as each level of mind is a “dwelling” or “lodging” place for the mind, the hierarchy from the lowest to the highest “stages” is sequential only in the exoteric dimension. 

That is to say that the sequential ordering is not necessary in itself when viewed from the esoteric, i.e., holistic, standpoint. 

In other words, it is possible to move directly from any state or “dwelling” to the most comprehensive realm.

The teachings evaluated here not only include Buddhist schools but also variations of Brahmanism, Hinduism, and Indian religious practices as well as Chinese non-Buddhist doctrines. 

And the Buddhist teachings include the major Indian and Chinese doctrines that have made their way to Japan: Ritsu (Chn. Lu-tsung, Vinaya studies), Kusha (based on Abhidharma), Jôjitsu (Skrt. Satyasiddhi, based on Sautrântika), Hossô (Skrt. Yogâcâra, Chn. Fa-hsiang), Sanron (Chn. San-lun based on Indian Madhyamaka), Tendai (Ch. T’ien-t’ai), Kegon (Chn. Hua-yen), and Shingon. Kûkai's classification system may be briefly summarized in the following schema:

1st to 3rd states: Pre-Buddhist stages: worldly “vehicles” of samsaric entrapment:

1st state: “The mind of the goat foolishly transmigrating in the six destinies (or realms)” (ishô teiyô-shin): The state of desire driven by animal instincts without moral restraint; the stage to which belong common people, hell-beings, hungry-ghosts, beasts, asuras (“titans”), and various deities or celestial beings trapped in their samsaric destinies.

2nd state: “The mind of the child tempered but ignorantly obsessed with moral precepts” (gudô jisai-shin): The state of ethical actions and virtue that promote social order but without any “religious” goal; the stage to which belong Confucianism and the Buddhist precepts (ritsu) for the laity.

3rd state: “The mind of the child composed and fearing nothing” (yodô mui-shin): The state of deity worship and extrinsic magico-religious practice for the sake of overcoming anxiety with the thought of attaining supernatural powers or immortality, or reaching an eternal and blissful heaven; the stage to which belong Taoism and various forms of Hinduism or Brahmanism.

4th to 10th states: Buddhist stages (the fourth to ninth being exoteric Buddhism and the tenth being esoteric Buddhism):

4th to 5th states: Hinâyâna stages: “vehicles” of those who aspire towards self-enlightenment without caring for the enlightenment of others.

4th state: “The mind of one affirming only the elements and negating the self” (yuiun muga-shin): The state of the śrâvaka who analyzes phenomena into the psycho-physical “aggregates” (skandhas) and/or the elements (dharmas), to thus negate any belief in a permanent ego (atman); the stage to which belong the teachings of the historical Buddha and his direct disciples and of the Abhidharma scholastics. While the substantiality of reality is thus deconstructed into its elemental dharmas, the dharmas themselves however become fetters, thus taking from three lives to sixty aeons to achieve liberation.

5th state: “The mind freed from karmic seeds” (batsu gôinju-shin): The state of the pratyeka-buddha, who, masterless on his own, attains insight into the chain of dependent origination to recognize the impermanence, self-less-ness, and non-substantiality of all, thus preventing new karma to arise. But in enjoying a certain level of “enlightenment,” he falls back into the “egoism” of self-complacency, compassionless apathy towards fellow beings, and the narrow vision of other-worldliness. Hence he has not yet reached complete enlightenment. The Sautrântika school belongs to this stage.

6th to 9th states: Mahâyâna stages: “vehicles” of the bodhisattvas, those who seek enlightenment both for self and for others, by overcoming self-other duality and recognizing the interdependency between self-enlightenment and other-enlightenment and between wisdom and compassion.

6th state: “The mind of the Mahâyâna adherent who is concerned with others” (taen daijô-shin): The state of Yogâcâra with its Vijñapti-mâtratâ (Jpn: yuishiki) standpoint that everything is “mind-only,” reached by its analysis of thing-events as phenomena of consciousness originating from a deep un-conscious “storehouse” or “receptacle consciousness” (âlaya-vijñâna). Its point is to detach oneself from the discriminating objectification of phenomena in order to realize the tranquility of “mind-only” from a non-discriminating perspective, which would allow the practice of “great compassion.” And yet this still takes several aeons of practice to achieve and is not the final state.

7th state: “The mind of one who realizes non-origination” (kakushin fushô-shin): The state of Madhyamaka with its śûnyavâda (Jpn: kûgan) standpoint that everything is empty. Here reifying and substantializing conceptions — including both objects and mind — that act as fetters are eliminated through Nâgârjuna's eight-fold negations which via their dependent origination show their emptiness.

8th state: “The mind of one who realizes harmony with the one path of truth” (nyojitsu ichidô-shin or ichidô muishin): The state of T’ien-t’ai with its standpoint of “oneness of all,” wherein one realizes that one moment contains eternity, a single thought contains all possible worlds, and a sesame seed contains a mountain, i.e. the non-duality between one and many; and between emptiness, dependent origination, and their “middle.”

9th state: “The mind of one who realizes the absence of substance within ultimate truth” (goku mujishô-shin): The state of Hua-yen with its standpoint of the mutual non-obstruction and interpenetration between the patternment (Chn: li; Jpn: ri) of all and the concrete thing-events (Chn: shih; Jpn: ji) on the basis of their emptiness, whereby one and many are non-dualistic. This non-duality is extended to the level of the entire dharmadhâtu.

10th state: Both Tendai and Kegon for Kûkai however lack the crucial element of direct experiential understanding to truly realize what they preach. 

One must thus proceed further by means of bodily ritual practice provided by the next and final state: Mantrayâna: “The mind of secret sublimity” (himitsu shôgon-shin). 

This is the state of Shingon, whose esoteric teachings and bodily experiential practice constitute the summit of the development of the mind. 

At this summit hosshin seppô is revealed and one attains sokushinjôbutsu through the micro-macro-cosmic correlativity of the three mysteries and through kaji.

Rather than rejecting or negating the previous states, this final state fulfills and encompasses their standpoints from what is claimed to be the most comprehensive standpoint, in view of — or rather in non-duality with — the Dharma. 

In light of the Dharma, the truths taught in those previous states are but relative or provisional truths, expedient means that are helpful only insofar as they lead one towards this final truth but which can also serve as fetters if one becomes attached to them. 

Each state is referred to as a “palace” (kyû or gû), which are all combined in the one grand cosmic palace (hokkaigû or hokkai shinden). 

This grand palace constitutes the entire cosmos as a mandala, with the tenth and highest state, the innermost secret palace of Dainichi, at the center and summit from which the Dharma emanates into its various manifestations in the lower states, the outer palaces. 

The closer one is to the center, the stronger one feels the pull of kaji drawing one up towards the central summit. But as stated above, the sequential ordering of the hierarchy is not necessary when the whole is viewed from this most comprehensive standpoint. 

For the grand cosmic palace penetrates and comprehends all of the specific palaces or dwellings of the mind. 

Hence one can make a sudden leap from any point in this cosmic mandala towards the center by successfully engaging in the esoteric practice of Shingon Buddhism. 

It is this mandalic structure that the term mandala in the title of the longer version of this work (Treatise on the Secret Mandala of the Ten States of Mind) signifies. 

It refers to the blueprint of the cosmic embodiment of the Dharma (hosshin), which in turn structures one's (ritual) practice in its arrangement and how one accordingly experiences the Dharma.

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Dear all, 

Reading through the above, I am sure those that have & still are listening attentively to SZ's Sharing of Dharma, will realized all these are already shared many times over in SZ's writings and speeches. :)

Now you can go read over SZ's articles explaining the Ten States of Mind Development or Ten Abiding Heart Thesis.

Found in Rainbow Body Attainment book 1. From Page 218 to page 253. 

There is a Ten Abiding Dharma from Avatamsaka Sutra too that I have shared in this blog.

Enjoy!!!

Om Guru Lian Sheng Siddhi Hom

Lama Lotuschef

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