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8th Ground – ACALĀ / IMMOVABLE

DESCRIPTION

The Eighth Ground is called Acalā, ‘Immovable’ 不動. In this ground practitioners fully realize that all things are nonconceptual, accessible to nonconceptual knowledge. They become wholly detached from mind, intellect, consciousness, thought, and ideation and thus become free from all striving in thought, word, and deed; no actions based on views, passions, or intentions become manifest in them. Nevertheless, even though they have attained peace and liberation, practitioners in this stage who are supported by their past vows of complete enlightenment do not become complacent but are further inspired to seek infinite knowledge. By means of the knowledge they develop, they are able to distinguish many paths in the world, show all aspects of virtue, control their own resolution, know the past and future, repel deluding influences, and carry out enlightening activities in endless contexts without regression.

Entry into the Eighth Ground

Bodhisattvas become able to penetratingly comprehend all dharmas as:

  • Originally unproduced
  • Undestroyed
  • Characteristicless
  • Neither coming forth into existence nor being lost
  • Neither going nor coming
  • Devoid of any inherent nature
  • The same in the past, present, and the future
  • Not differentiated
  • Beyond any covetous grasping by the mind and mental discriminations
  • By nature, like empty space

This is what defines the bodhisattvas’ acquisition of the Patient Tolerance of the Birthlessness of all Dharmas and marks their entry into the Eight Ground.

Abiding in the Eighth Stage

A bodhisattva on the Eighth Ground is known as a ‘profound practice’ bodhisattva, transcending all characteristics, one who has left behind all conceptual thought and covetous attachments, like a bhikṣu in the most mindless meditation, like waking from a dream filled with urgently pursued efforts, like being reborn in the Brahma Heavens.

Buddhas appear before bodhisattvas on the Eighth Ground and instruct them to continue pursuing all-knowledge, otherwise they would choose to enter final Nirvana at this point.

Immeasurable Practices Associated with the Eight Stage

Up though the Seventh Ground, the meritorious qualities cultivated and accumulated have all been the product of a single body’s progression along the Path. Now, beginning with the Eighth Ground, the bodhisattva acquires immeasurable numbers of bodies, carrying forth countlessly many physical, verbal, and mental deeds.

Effortlessness associated with the Eighth Stage

Like a boat embarking on the great ocean, by a great deal of effort is first dragged to the shore, but when carried by the wind moves effortlessly.

Contemplations associated with the Eighth Stage

The bodhisattva mahasattva who has reached the Eighth Ground gives birth to effortless functioning of mind arising from great upaya and knowledge. Contemplating with knowledge:

  • The production and destruction of worlds
  • The four elements
  • Atoms (the number of them)
  • The Three Realms (as they really are)
  • The Ten Bodies - through knowledge of ‘how to appear as a reflection’
    1. Sentient Being body
    2. Land body
    3. Karma body
    4. Sravaka body
    5. pratykabuddha body
    6. bodhisattva body
    7. Tathagata body
    8. Knowledge Body
    9. Dharma Body
    10. Space Body

The bodhisattva, knowing beings’ resolute convictions, may make the body of a being into their own body, or they may cause the body of a being to become a land body, karma body, etc.

They skillfully distinguish and discourse in accordance with Suchness on the characteristic features of all of these bodies.

Having developed a skillful knowing with regard to the arising of all of these bodies, the bodhisattva then acquires complete sovereign mastery of lifespan, mind, wealth, karma, births, vows, faith, psychic power, knowledge and Dharma.

Names for the Eighth Ground

  1. Because the bodhisattva mahāsattvas dwelling on this ground are invincible, it is known as the Ground of Immovability;
  2. Because they are irreversible in their wisdom it is known as the ground of irreversibility;
  3. Because no one in the entire world can fathom it, it is known as the ground of awe-inspiring qualities;
  4. Because it is free of the faults associated with the home life, it is known as the ground of the prince;
  5. Because they possess sovereign mastery in accomplishing everything they turn their mind to, it is known as the ground of the bodhisattva’s birth;
  6. Because there is nothing more to be done, it is known as the ground of completion;
  7. Because they are skillful in investigation with knowledge, it is known as the ultimate ground;
  8. Because they are skillful in bringing forth great vows, it is known as the ground of transformations;
  9. Because they are invincible in all dharmas, this ground is known as the place of victory;
  10. And because they have skillfully cultivated and developed the earlier phases of the path, it is known as the power of effortlessness ground.

Analogy of Gold

In the same way that the smelting of real gold and its skillful inlaying with various gems by a skilled goldsmith, after it has been made into a precious strand of jewels to be worn around the neck of the lord of the four continents, it becomes a precious object of a sort that none owned by anyone else on earth could ever rival its brilliance.

Becoming a World Leader

Bodhisattvas dwelling on the first ground often become Brahma Lords of a thousand worlds