Introduction

i.1The Acceptance That Tames Beings with the Sky-Colored Method of Perfect Conduct presents a series of teachings, in eleven chapters spanning over 230 Tibetan folios in the Degé Kangyur, that focus on the implications of the view of emptiness on the conduct of a bodhisattva. The text addresses three core issues: How should one teach the hearers and solitary buddhas from the perspective of the Great Vehicle? Why should bodhisattvas choose to teach in unfavorable world systems and to the afflicted beings who are living there? And how should they tame non-Buddhists and direct them toward the Dharma?

i.2At a mountain hermitage, near a town named Removing Impurities, the Buddha Śākyamuni and the bodhisattva Destroyer of Aggregates explain to the monks and bodhisattvas assembled around them that all things are empty, and that bodhisattvas who gain this realization attain an acceptance with which they tame beings using the method of perfect conduct. This initial discourse ends with a group of hearers leaving the assembly, and the teaching thus introduces the idea that some Buddhist practitioners are not yet ready for the profound teaching of the Great Vehicle.

i.3At the request of his remaining audience, however, the Buddha agrees to reveal the nature of this acceptance on Mount Gandhamādana, where an immense number of bodhisattvas and divine beings gather from universes in the ten directions. Through his miraculous powers, the Buddha appears there as a non-Buddhist seer performing a huge fire sacrifice, and he transforms many of the other beings present into seers engaging in all kinds of non-Buddhist practices. When he does so, a few of the remaining great hearers are portrayed as being unable to perceive where the Buddha has gone, and at the same time a number of the remaining bodhisattvas, disheartened by the sight, decide to leave and return to their respective realms. This situation prompts a teaching on the necessity for bodhisattvas to remain in impure buddha realms inundated with the five impurities for the sake of the beings living there and in order to reach the level of “great beings” (mahāsattvas) who strive to fulfill the highest goals of the bodhisattva path.

i.4To the many remaining bodhisattvas and other beings, still appearing in the form of seers, the Buddha, also still in the form of a seer, then delivers an extensive discourse on the correct view that must be adopted so that one may cultivate the acceptance with which one can tame beings through the sky-colored method of perfect conduct. This long teaching, which constitutes the heart of the sūtra, explains and expands at some length on the idea that the nature of all the inner and outer formations, including the aggregates, the elements, the sense fields, and the twelve links of dependent arising, are empty. That all things are empty would also appear to be the implication of the comparison with the color of space or the sky.

i.5Then, through the power of his meditative absorption, the Buddha attracts a great multitude of deluded beings engaging in improper practices to Mount Gandhamādana to clear away their wrong views and establish them on the correct path. The teaching he delivers to them contains detailed descriptions of non-Buddhist practices and behavior. It insists on the fact that such ascetic practices and observances are directly inspired by the māras, and that none of them leads to liberation. Yet, he also emphasizes the necessity for bodhisattvas to appear among such beings to tame them and direct them toward the practice of the true Dharma. The Buddha provides supporting examples for his instruction by recounting events from two of his former lives. In the first story, he was a king who vowed to free non-Buddhist practitioners from old age and death, and who then realized this acceptance and transmitted his realization to beings in the ten directions. In the second story, he describes the spiritual transformation of a brahmin named Gaṅga whom he met when he was another king. Inspired by another buddha living at that time, that brahmin renounced his devotional practices, took refuge in the Three Jewels, and made a series of aspirations that led him to the realization of this acceptance.

i.6The sūtra ends with the Buddha Śākyamuni emphasizing the importance and benefits of the acceptance that tames beings with the sky-colored method of perfect conduct. All the beings gathered around him promise to protect and spread this teaching, and all the bodhisattvas take the pledge to engage in bodhisattva conduct in impure realms of the ten directions.

i.7Regarding the Tibetan translation itself, the text does not provide any information about the translators or the circumstances of the translation, with the exception of the colophons found in the Stok Palace, Ulan Bator, and Shey editions of the Kangyur, which make the following remark: “The eleven sections of this text were translated from Chinese. It seems that the old translation has not been revised according to the new terminological register.” No Chinese text that might have served as the source of this translation has yet been found, however, nor do we know of any Sanskrit manuscripts that might be a possible source text for it or of references to it in other works. The Tibetan translation was most likely completed during the early translation period, as its title is listed in the early ninth-century Denkarma (lhan dkar ma) catalog, but it is not included in the list of those texts described therein as translated from Chinese. So, there is much still left to determine about this sūtra and its history.

i.8A few more hints about its history may be evident from the content and framing of the sūtra. For instance, in the conclusion Maitreya refers to the discourse delivered in the sūtra as an instance of the second turning of the wheel of Dharma. It may also be significant that the name of the acceptance described throughout this sūtra is presented alternatively in the colophons of chapters 6–8 as “the acceptance that tames beings with light rays that travel through space.” This alternate title could perhaps be an indication that those chapters circulated independently or once constituted the core of an earlier text, or perhaps they may have been interpolated from another text, hitherto unknown. More research would be needed before one could confirm or disprove such claims.

i.9This sūtra has so far received little attention in writing, either in Tibet or elsewhere, and it has not yet been the focus of any sustained scholarship, to the best of our knowledge. One reason, perhaps, could be the challenging nature of the text itself. We have done what we could to render the Tibetan text into English, but many uncertainties remain, as indicated by the large number of notes about tentative translations we have left in the text. Our hope is therefore that this translation will serve to stimulate its further study. For this translation into English, we relied on the Degé xylograph, the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma), and the Stok Palace edition of the Kangyur.