Uttaratantra: History of the Text

Origin of the Text According to Tradition 

In this seminar, we will talk about the great Mahayana text by Maitreya, Mahayana-uttaratantra Shastra (Theg-pa chen-po rgyud bla-ma’i bstan-bcos), about Buddha-nature. It’s An Indicative Composition on a Vast Vehicle of the Mind, the Furthest Everlasting Continuum. It was written down by Asanga (Thogs-med), although it was composed by Maitreya (Byams-pa), the future Buddha. Asanga lived 600 years after the Buddha, for 150 years; so, if Buddha passed away in the mid-sixth century before our era, he lived between 50 and 200 of the Common Era. 

Buddha taught the Prajnaparamita Sutras in which there are the extensive and profound teachings about voidness. The 100,000 verse version was brought by the gods to the god realm; the 25,000 verse version was taken to the realm of the yakshas, the lords of wealth; and the 8,000 verse version was taken by the nagas to their realm beneath the sea. These were protected. What that actually means, for them to go to these various realms, is hard to understand. From a Jungian point of view, one could say that they were hidden into the unconscious and guarded by these various types of beings, particularly the nagas, which are similar to dragons guarding the princess and the tower and the treasure, and so on, what we have in Western myths. 

Nagarjuna brought the 8,000 verse version back from the nagas from beneath the sea and explained the profound teachings on voidness. Whereas Asanga studied the Prajnaparamita with Maitreya in the god realm and he brought that back with him and explained particularly the extensive mind – the extensive teachings on the mind that understands voidness. In a sense, we can say that symbolically the deep profound teachings on voidness come from the bottom of the ocean, and the extensive teachings about the mind and the method for understanding voidness come from the heavens, which are extensive like space. 

Asanga, in order to get these teachings, thought that he would have to do a meditation retreat on Maitreya to try to get a vision of Maitreya, and so he did retreat for 12 years. Actually, it was divided into many three-year retreats; it was probably a type of mantra retreat, although that’s not clear. After the first three years, he didn’t experience any type of vision, no results, and he left his cave. He saw a man who was dusting a large rock – with a feather – that was in front of his house, and he asked the man what he was doing. He said he was trying to remove the rock by dusting it with the feather because it was blocking the sun from his house. Asanga thought if this man can put so much effort and so much perseverance into doing something so trivial, then he can also do something with much more perseverance. Obviously, the symbolism here was to remove what is blocking the sunlight, the light of Buddha from the inner house. One has to exercise great perseverance in order to accomplish that. 

Then, after the next three years with still with no results, Asanga gave up. He saw again an old man who was polishing a long iron bar with a silk scarf. He asked what the man was doing, and he said, “I am trying to make a needle out of this.” Again, Asanga said if the old man can have so much perseverance, then he can also. This probably represents taking our dull mind and polishing it, making it sharp like a needle for understanding voidness. Then, after three more years with no results, Asanga again left in disgust and discouragement from his retreat. He now saw an old man shifting a hill from one side of a valley to another with bags of dirt. He again asked what he was doing, and the old man told him; again, he learned perseverance. This likewise could represent trying to shift our old samsaric ways to a new nirvanic type of way, slowly, bit by bit, by moving the bags of dirt from one side of the valley to the other. 

Again, Asanga did three more years of retreat. At the end of it, after 12 years with no results, he left the retreat, and he saw an old female dog that was covered with maggots. He was filled with great compassion for the dog and for the maggots. He thought that if he took the maggots off and put them on the ground, they would starve. So, he cut off a piece of his leg, a piece of flesh from his leg, and put it on the ground. Also, he thought that if he removed the maggots with his fingers, he would harm them, but if he removed them with his tongue, it would be much better. He bent down, closed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue to take the maggots off the old dog, but he could never reach the dog. He opened his eyes, and the dog turned out to be Maitreya. Asanga asked Maitreya, “Where have you been all this time?” Maitreya said, “I’ve been here all along. It was because you developed love,” which is actually what the name Maitreya means, “that you were able to cut through your obscurations, and you are able to see me.” 

It was the idea of love that was able to cut through all of this obscuration. Maitreya said, “As proof that I was here all the time with you, I was not only these old men that showed you these signs but look here on my robe. Whenever you blew your nose, all the snot from your nose landed on my robe, so here it is.” That would symbolize that the jewel of the teachings (and particularly of love and Buddha-nature) was covered by Asanga with his snot (with his impure ideas) and that it was only love that was able to break through that. 

Then, Asanga was taken by Maitreya to the Tushita Buddha-field, the realm of the gods here represented by the Buddha-field Tushita, and he listened to the stages of the extensive teachings (of how to understand voidness and put them into practice) by Maitreya. He was there for a morning of the gods, which was 50 human years. Later, he came back down and wrote down from memory The Five Dharma Texts of Maitreya (Byams-chos sde-lnga). These are A Filigree of Realizations (mNgon-rtogs rgyan, Skt. Abhisamayālaṃkārā); A Filigree for the Mahayana Sutras (Theg-pa chen-po mdo-sde rgyan, Skt. Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra); Differentiating the Middle from the Extremes (dBu-mtha’ rnam-’byed, Skt. Madhyāntavibhaṅga); The Furthest Everlasting Continuum (rGyud bla-ma, Skt. Uttaratantra, our text here); and Differentiating Phenomena and Their Actual Nature (Chos-dang chos-nyid rnam-’byed, Skt. Dharmadharmatāvibhaṅga). 

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