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6 ) The Great Vehicle mind - Benefiting others
The sixth stage witnesses the translation of wisdom into
compassion, the first step in the Mahayana or Great Vehicle.
These three stages represent a fundamental turning of
consciousness away from the distractions of a transient world,
which pretends to permanence, towards the seemingly less
certain but more real world of spiritual striving.
At this stage, the Buddhist of the Great Vehicle system is a
philanthropist. According to the teaching of Hosso-Shu (Jap.) or
Fa-Shiang-School (ch.), although life is unreal, thought is not.
Thoughts create all things. A person's appearance is the result of
his thoughts, which dictate his life destiny to be either good or
bad. A person with bad thoughts can never have a noble and pure
life. By keeping the knowledge of the secret principle of
liberation for ourselves, we will not become Buddha. Helping
others is also helping ourselves. If the Buddha does not use the
doctrine to save people from their miseries he does not deserve to
be called Buddha, The Great Compassionate One.
This is similar to the lotus' stems being held under water by
grasses. Other lotuses joined their stems together to set it free and
let it rise above the water.
- The mind of nothingness. Enlightenment
In the seventh stage an individual realizes that the mind is
unborn, without beginning or ending. The person has reached the
philosophy of “True Emptiness” meaning that things are not real
and not unreal. This is the stage of the Middle Way doctrine
(Madhyamika) of the Three Treatises School (Sanronshu-Jap.).
Persistent meditation on the eightfold negation: No life, no death,
no coming, no going, no similarity, no difference, no existence,