DESCRIPTION
The Third Ground is called Prabhākarī, ‘Refulgent’ 發光 (literally ‘light-making’). The ‘mirror-like’ mind having reached the ‘Stainless’ ground becomes radiant.
Entry into the Third Ground
The bodhisattva enters by consciously focusing on:
- A pure mind 清淨心
- A peacefully abiding mind (sthita-citta) 安住心
- A sated mind 厭捨心
- A mind beyond hate 離貪心
- An irreversible mind 不退心
- A stable mind 堅固心
- A brilliant mind 明盛心
- An immovable mind 勇猛心
- A broadly inclusive mind 廣心
- A magnanimous mind 大心
Abiding on the Third Ground
The bodhisattva contemplates all conditioned dharmas to being characterized by:
- Impermanence 無常
- Suffering 苦
- Impurity 不淨
- Instability 不安隱
- Certain of ruination 敗壞
- Not long enduring 不久住
- Being produced and destroyed in each mind-moment 剎那生滅
- Not coming forth from the past 非從前際生
- Not proceeding on to the future 非向後際去
- Not abiding in the present 非於現在住
The bodhisattva then doubly increases the renunciation of all conditioned things.
Realizing that the Wisdom of the Tathāgatas is inconceivable, the bodhisattva brings forth great compassion for all sentient beings who are alone, without refuge, engulfed in flames, lost and covered over, and they bring about great vigor in rescuing sentient beings, liberating them, maturing them, etc.
Searching for the Dharma in the Third Ground
“If someone came to the bodhisattva and said, ‘I will bestow on you a single sentence of Dharma spoken by the Buddha by which you will be able to purify your cultivation of the Path, however I will only allow you to hear it if you jump into a huge fire pit,’ the bodhisattva thinks, ‘I would even leap from the Brahma Heaven into a fire pit the size of a Three Thousand Great Thousand World System, how much the less would I shrink from such a small pit of fire.”
Practices associated with the Third Ground
The Bodhisattva abides in Meditative States
“One cannot accomplish this solely through the spoken word”
The bodhisattva separates from all desires and unwholesome dharmas and enters the four dhyānas:
- With ideation (vitarka) and mental discursion (vicāra), joy and bliss born of seclusion.
- Free of ideation and discursion, experiencing joy and bliss through concentration
- Separating from joy, coursing in equanimity
- Coursing in equanimity and mindfulness that are pure
The bodhisattva enters the four formless realms:
- Everything as space
- Everything as consciousness
- Nothing whatsoever
- State of neither perception nor non-perception
The bodhisattva develops the four immeasurable mind-states:
- Loving kindness
- Compassion
- Empathic Joy
- Equanimity
The bodhisattva develops the spiritual superknowledges:
- Supernormal powers
- Divine Ear
- Knowledge of others’ thoughts
- Recall of past lives
- Divine Eye
Analogy of Gold
Like when refined gold is [further] refined by a skilled artisan, which radiates yet even more
Use of the Four Means of Unification
The bodhisattva employs kind speech and volunteerism
Association with the Ten Paramitas
Associated with patience
Becoming a World Leader
Bodhisattvas dwelling on the first ground often become Śakra devānām Indras, lord of the Thirty-Three Heavens upon Mt. Meru.
Acquisition of Samadhis, sight of buddhas, etc.
Acquiring hundreds of thousands of samadhis, etc.