| Philosophy and Religion / The twenty-eight categories of yogic precepts. |
Gampopa (Dvagpo-Lharje)
XX. The Ten Best Things
(1) For one of little intellect, the best thing is to have faith in the law of cause and effect.
(2) For the one of ordinary intellect, the best thing is to recognize, both within and without oneself, the workings of the law of opposites.1
(3) For one of superior intellect, the best thing is to have through comprehension of the inseparableness of the knower, the object of knowledge, and the act of knowing.2
(4) For one of little intellect, the best meditation is complete concentration of mind on a single object.
(5) For the one of ordinary intellect, the best meditation is unbroken concentration of mind upon the two dualistic concepts [of phenomena and noumena, and consciousness and mind].
(6) For one of superior intellect, the best meditation is to remain in mental quiescence, the mind devoid of all thought-processes, knowing that the meditator, the object of meditation, and the act of meditating constitute an inseparable unity.
(7) For one of little intellect, the best religious practice is to live in strict conformity with the law of cause and effect.
(8) For the one of ordinary intellect, the best religious practice is to regard all objective things as though they were images seen in a dream or produced by magic.
(9) For one of superior intellect, the best religious practice is to abstain from all worldly desires and actions,3 [regarding all saṃsāric things as they were non-existent].
(10) For those of all three grades of intellect, the best indication of spiritual progress is the gradual diminution of obscuring passions and selfishness.
These are The Ten Best Things.
Footnotes
1. Another rendering, more literal, but rather unintelligible to the reader unaccustomed to the profound thought of Tibetan metaphysicians, might be phrased as follows: ‘For one of ordinary intellect [or spiritual insight] the best thing is to recognize the external and internal phenomena [as these are seen] in the four aspects [or unions] of phenomena and noumena’.
Such recognition is to be arrived at through yogic analysis of phenomena, manifested in or through the cosmos. Such analysis must be based upon the realization that all phenomena, visible and invisible, have their noumenal source in the Cosmic Mind, the origin of all existing things
‘The four aspects [or unions] of phenomena and noumena’ are: (1) Phenomena and Voidness (Skt. Śūnyatā); (2) Clearness and Voidness; (3) Bliss and Voidness; (4) Consciousness and Voidness.
Upon each of these ‘unions’ a vast treatise could be written. Here we may briefly state that Phenomena, Clearness, Bliss, and Consciousness represent four aspects of phenomena in opposition to their corresponding noumena, or voidnesses.
The Śūnyatā (Tib. Stong-pa-nyid), the Voidness, the Ultimate Source of all phenomena, being without attributes, or qualities, is humanely inconceivable. In the Mahāyāna philosophy it symbolizes the Absolute, the Thatness of the Vedāntists, the One Reality, which is Mind.
2. It is usual for the guru, somewhat after the manner of the Zen gurus of Japan, to put the problem before the śiṣya (or disciple) in the form of a series of interdependent questions such as the following: Is the knower other than the object of knowledge? Is the object of knowledge other than act of knowing? Is the act of knowing other than the knowledge? Similar series of questions are set forth in The Epitome of Great Symbol.
3. This is another aspect of or manner of stating the rule of the karma yogin, to be free from worldly desires and unattracted to the fruits of actions.
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