Toh 311The Noble Sūtra “Teaching the Eleven Thoughts”

Summary

Teaching the Eleven Thoughts
takes place just before the Buddha attains parinirvāṇa, when
he bequeaths his final testament to the assembled monks in
the form of a brief discourse on eleven thoughts toward
which the mind should be directed at the moment of death. He
exhorts his listeners to develop nonattachment, love,
freedom from resentment, a sense of moral responsibility, a
proper perspective on virtue and vice, courage in the face
of the next life, a perception of impermanence and the lack
of self, and the knowledge that nirvāṇa is peace.

Acknowledgements

Translated, introduced and annotated by Nathaniel Rich,
in consultation with a draft translation by Khenpo Kalsang
Gyaltsen and Chodrungma Kunga Chodron of the Sakya Pandita
Translation Group. Edited and finalized by members of the
84000 translation team.

The translation was completed under the patronage and
supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the
Buddha.

Introduction

There is no known Sanskrit version of this
sūtra, and the Chinese canon does not include a
translation. Because it has no colophon, we have no
information concerning its translation from Sanskrit
into Tibetan. It does appear that the sūtra had a
complex transmissional history in Tibet. Versions of
Teaching the Eleven
Thoughts are found in both the Tshalpa
(tshal pa)
and Thempangma (them
spangs ma) Kangyurs, but there is also a
nearly identical sūtra called Teaching the Ten Thoughts (’du shes bcu bstan pa)
that is not found in the Tshalpa Kangyurs but is
found in the Thempangma Kangyurs (Stok, Ulaanbaatar,
and Shey, as well as the Bhutan Kangyurs that appear
to be in the Thempangma line). Teaching the Ten Thoughts is also found
in the Hemis Kangyur, in the Lhasa and Narthang
Kangyurs, and in the Lang mdo and the Namgyal
collections. Moreover, a sūtra called
Teaching the Ten
Thoughts is found in three Dunhuang
manuscripts, but in each
case the actual text is a version of Teaching the Eleven
Thoughts. Teaching the
Ten Thoughts is distinguished from Teaching the Eleven Thoughts
by its slightly more elaborate descriptions of the
individual thoughts. As examples, we might compare
the wording of the first two items in the two
sūtras. In the present sūtra, the first two items
are the thoughts of “nonattachment to this life” and
“love for all beings”; in Teaching the Ten Thoughts, the first two
items are the thoughts of nonattachment to “the
domain (spyod
yul) of this life” and of both love
and compassion for all beings. The
difference in number between the two sūtras is due
to the fact that Teaching the
Ten Thoughts has a single thought related
to moral discipline, “the thought of acknowledging
all faults and corruptions of moral discipline and
undertaking the entirety of moral discipline,”
whereas the present sūtra divides this thought into
two—“the thought of acknowledging all faulty moral
discipline” and “the thought of undertaking the
entirety of moral discipline.” Apart from this,
there are interesting variants and overlaps in
spelling, word choice, and so forth that, while they
do not substantially alter the meaning, suggest that
there were multiple lines of translation,
transmission, and/or editorial intervention that
resulted in the different versions of the two nearly
identical sūtras that are available to us today.

The list of saṃjñā enumerated in these
two sūtras appears to be unique in the Kangyur, but
there are several other sets of ten saṃjñā that at
least partially overlap with the set of eleven found
here. These include those found in the Girimānanda Sutta
(Aṅguttara Nikāya 10.60) of the Pali canon, a
version of which was translated into Tibetan in the
fourteenth century by Tharpa Lotsawa and Ānandaśrī
of Lankā (The Sūtra of
Giriyānanda, ri’i
kun dga’ bo’i mdo, Toh 38), in the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
(Toh 119), and in the Arthavistaradharmaparyāya (Toh
318). To illustrate,
The Sūtra of
Giriyānanda enumerates ten saṃjñā to be
taught to the monk for whom the sūtra is named, who
is suffering from a severe illness. Those ten are
those of impermanence, the lack of self, impurity
(mi gtsang
ba), impediments (bar du gcod
pa), abandoning, being without desire
(’dod
chags), cessation, not delighting in any
world, impermanence in all conditioning (’du byed),
and mindfulness of in- and out-breathing. By
contrast, the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra presents a list of
ten saṃjñā that consists of impermanence, suffering,
the lack of self, abandoning food (kha zas spong
ba), nonattachment to any world, death,
the many faults of wrongdoing (nyes pa’i skyon mang
ba), abandoning, cessation, and the lack
of craving (sred pa med pa). The Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra
prefaces its presentation of this list by saying
that a bodhisattva great being, monk, nun, layman,
or laywoman who endeavors in these ten will attain
nirvāṇa.

The Translation

The Noble Sūtra

Teaching the Eleven Thoughts

Homage to the Three
Jewels.

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was
dwelling in the Grove of Twin Sal Trees, in the city
of Kuśinagarī in the country of the Mallas.

At the time of his parinirvāṇa, he spoke to the
bhikṣus: “Bhikṣus, at the time of death you should
bring to mind eleven
thoughts. What are the eleven? You should bring to
mind the thought of nonattachment to this life, the thought of love
for all beings, the thought of giving up all
resentments, the thought of acknowledging all faulty
moral discipline, the thought of undertaking the
entirety of moral discipline, the thought that even
great harms that have been caused are
insignificant, the thought that
small acts of virtue are significant, the thought of
a lack of fright with respect to the next world, the
thought that everything conditioned is impermanent,
the thought that all phenomena lack a self, and the
thought that nirvāṇa is peace.”

Notes

Bibliography

Appendix One

Teaching the Ten

Thoughts

Homage to the Three Jewels.

Thus did I hear at one time. The Blessed One was
dwelling in the Grove of Twin Sal Trees, in the city
of Kuśinagarī in the country of the Mallas.

When he intended to attain parinirvāṇa, the
Blessed One spoke to the fourfold assembly:
“Bhikṣus, at the moment of death, you
should cultivate ten thoughts. What are the ten? You
should establish the thought of nonattachment to the
domain of this life, the thought of love and
compassion for all beings, the thought of giving up
and abandoning all resentments, the thought of
acknowledging all faults and corruptions of moral
discipline and undertaking the entirety of moral
discipline, the thought that great harms caused by
oneself and others are insignificant, the thought that there is significant fruit
and benefit in the small acts of virtue committed by
oneself and others, the thought of fearlessness and
a lack of fright in moving on to the next world, the
thought that conditioning is impermanent, the
thought that all phenomena lack a self, and the
thought that nirvāṇa is bliss and peace.”

This completes “The Sūtra Teaching the Ten
Thoughts”