Ornament to Beautify the Three Appearances

The Mahayana Preliminary Practices of the Sakya Lamdré Tradition

Ngorchen Könchok Lhundrup, Cyrus Stearns

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781614297239
• eBook ISBN: 9781614297376
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Buddhism

The latest offering from a renowned translator in the Buddhist world of one of the most important texts in the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. This translation was made at the request of the head of the Sakya tradition. Ornament to Beautify the Three Appearances is the first book of a two-volume set of works written by Ngorchen Könchok Lhundrup (1497–1557) to explain the Lamdré teachings, the most important system of tantric theory and practice in the Sakya tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The Lamdré, or Path with the Result, is based on the Vajra Lines of the great Indian adept Virupa (ca. seventh–eighth centuries). The first topic is the fundamental meditative practices of Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism. In the Lamdré teachings, these preliminary instructions are known as the Three Appearances. The guiding instructions on impure appearance are for the purpose of developing renunciation. These focus on the defects of samsara; the rarity, benefit, and transience of human life; and the nature of positive and negative actions and results. The guiding instructions on the appearance of the experiences are for the purpose of producing the altruistic intent. These focus on developing love, compassion, and bodhicitta, and on cultivating joy now about the uncommon experiences that will arise later when practicing the Vajrayana teachings. The guiding instructions on pure appearance are for the purpose of producing enthusiasm for the ultimate result of complete awakening. These briefly describe the inconceivable nature of a buddha's enlightened body, speech, and mind. Having absorbed these preliminary instructions, the practitioner may go on to the second volume of Ngorchen's works, a restricted text that explains the main tantric practices of the Three Continua, intended for students who have at least received the great initiation of Hevajra. Volume 2 is available in a restricted box set that includes this first volume and may be obtained only on the Wisdom Publications website.

THE MAIN PRACTICE

To practice the individual topics of meditation:

Guiding instructions on impure appearance,

to produce renunciation.

Guiding instructions on the appearance of the experiences,

to produce the altruistic intent.

Guiding instructions on pure appearance,

to produce enthusiasm.

PART 1

Guiding Instructions on Impure Appearance, to Produce Renunciation

Guiding instructions on the defects of saṃsāra,

to produce renunciation.

Guiding instructions on the difficulty of gaining

the freedoms and endowments, to arouse diligence.

Guiding instructions on positive and negative actions

and results, to show what should be accepted and rejected.

CHAPTER 1

Guiding Instructions on the Defects of Saṃsāra, to Produce Renunciation

THIS IS PRESENTED in the treatise by the phrase “A sentient being,”⁶⁹ because, if the realms of sentient beings are examined, it will be understood that they have not passed beyond only suffering.

Therefore, those who strive for nirvāṇa, a liberation that is permanent freedom from saṃsāra, must eliminate attachment to saṃsāra. To abandon attachment to saṃsāra, we must be mindful of the defects of saṃsāra. To be mindful of the defects of saṃsāra, we must depend on the oral instructions of a guru and understand the nature of all saṃsāra to be suffering.

A song of the precious venerable lord says:

To achieve nirvāṇa, abandon attachment

to the three realms.

To abandon attachment to the three realms,

be mindful of the defects of saṃsāra.⁷⁰

And a sūtra also says:

The desire realm has faults, and the form realm

also has faults. In a similar way, the formless realm

also has faults. Only nirvāṇa is seen to be faultless.⁷¹ [10a]

And Maitreyanātha also says:

Just as feces have no sweet aroma, there is no happiness among these

five living beings. Their sufferings are constant, like those produced

by contact with fire, weapons, salt amoniac, and so forth.⁷²

It might be asked, “Well, what types of suffering, faults, and defects exist in saṃsāra?”

The Sūtra on the Foundations of Mindfulness says:

Sentient beings in the hells are tormented by hellfire.

Hungry spirits are tormented by hunger and thirst.

Animals are tormented by eating each other.

Human beings are tormented by short lifespans.

Gods are tormented by carelessness.

There is never any happiness on the needle-tip

of saṃsāra.⁷³

For reflection on their sufferings:

Reflection on the suffering of suffering,

and developing renunciation.

Reflection on the suffering of change,

and abandoning attachment.

Reflection on the suffering of conditioned existence,

and cultivating the wish for liberation.

I. REFLECTION ON THE SUFFERING OF SUFFERING, AND DEVELOPING RENUNCIATION

A song of the precious venerable lord says:

First, the suffering of suffering, which

is the suffering of the three lower realms.

If you reflect well on that your flesh will

crawl. If it fell upon you there would be

no way to bear it.

Not achieving the virtue to avoid it,

those who keep cultivating the crops

of the lower realms are so pitiful,

wherever they are!⁷⁴

The Reply to Tratön’s Request also says:

The suffering of suffering is in the three lower realms,

like abscesses upon leprosy sores. If you have reflected

well on that—how could it be endured? Thinking of that,

turn away from nonvirtuous actions.⁷⁵ [10b]

Determining this has three topics:

A. Reflection on the sufferings of the hells

B. Reflection on the sufferings of the hungry spirits

C. Reflection on the sufferings of animals

A. REFLECTION ON THE SUFFERINGS OF THE HELLS

1. Reflection on the sufferings of the cold hells

2. Reflection on the sufferings of the hot hells

3. Reflection on the sufferings of the peripheral and minor hells

1. Reflection on the sufferings of the cold hells

The eight are:

Blistering, Bursting Blisters, Crying “Alas!,”

Crying “Woe!,” and Chattering Teeth,

Split Open Like an Utpala, Split Open Like a Lotus,

and Greatly Split Open Like a Lotus.

Blistering

The place of birth is a land totally surrounded on all sides by a ring of great glacial peaks. On a vast icy plain, a place of torment by sharp contact with horrible snow blizzards, without even starlight as a source of light, and without the chance to rely on even a scrap of cloth as a source of warmth, the hell beings are magically and instantly born alone with full-grown bodies, as sentient beings for whom the results of their own previously performed acts have ripened. From being struck by contact with the cold there, countless bunches of blisters appear on the body.

Bursting Blisters

Contact with the cold twenty times greater than that makes even the blisters burst and ooze blood, serum, and so forth, which also become ice.

Crying “Alas!”

In a similar way, the force of extreme cold makes them wail, “Alas!”

Crying “Woe!”

Contact with the cold even greater than that makes them scream in misery, “Woe!”

Chattering Teeth

Contact with the cold even greater than that makes the teeth chatter and the body stiffen. [11a]

Split Open Like an Utpala

Contact with the cold even greater than that makes the outer skin of the body turn bluish and split into pieces.

Split Open Like a Lotus

After that outer skin is carried off by the blizzard, the body that has become red like fresh, raw meat also splits into bits and pieces.

Greatly Split Open Like a Lotus

The body, changed as before, splits into hundreds and thousands of pieces, the internal organs spill out, and those also split open.

Concerning these, the master Candragomin says:

An incomparable wind, penetrating even its bones, freezes

the body, carries off its quivering flesh, and it curls into a ball.

Hundreds of blisters form and burst, from which creatures are born

who strike with weapons, and blood, serum, and marrow ooze.⁷⁶

The Treasury mentions the lifespans in those hells:

By removing a sesame seed once every

hundred years from a sesame bin, it will

be emptied. That is the lifespan in Blistering.

The lifespans of the others multiply by twenty.⁷⁷

A sesame bin is a container that holds eighty loads of sesame calculated in the large measures⁷⁸ of the Magadha region [in India]. The amount of time it takes to empty that sesame bin by discarding a single sesame seed once every hundred human years is the lifespan in Blistering. And that of the seven lower hells is each twenty times longer than the one above it. Accordingly:

The duration in Bursting Blisters is 20 times longer.

Crying “Alas!” is 400. Crying “Woe!” is 8,000,

and Chattering Teeth is 160,000. Split Open Like

an Utpala is 3.2 million, Split Open Like a Lotus

is 64 million, and Greatly Split Open Like a Lotus

is 1.28 billion. [11b]

Even those lifespans are just approximate. If given in detail, they would obviously be even longer than that, because a sūtra says:

O monks, for example: if a sesame bin of the land of Magadha (holding eighty loads of sesame) is filled to the brim with sesame and then someone throws out a single sesame seed when each century has passed, through that process those eighty loads of sesame will be absolutely emptied very quickly. But I do not say that the lives of sentient beings born in Blistering will have reached an end.

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Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• Foreword by His Holiness the Sakya Trichen
• Translator’s Introduction
• Ornament to Beautify the Three Appearances
• Introduction
• The Preliminaries
• The Main Practice
• Conclusion
• Outline of Ornament to Beautify the Three Appearances
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Translator
• Copyright