If he can see this truth clearly, the supreme Enlightment becomes easy to achieve, not to speak of all the other dharmas. Thus contemplating the impermanence of all feelings, he masters all feelings by means of the elevated feelings of the Four Divine Abodes. Their mastery leads to a perfect detachment with equanimity. The equanimity (upekṣā), which leads to the state of awakening, is, however, mastered by a Bodhisattva only after attaining the perfection in the previous three abodes. After discussing the absorption in the realm of subtle forms (rūpa dhyāna) with the help of the two above-mentioned themes, the treatise discusses formless absorption (arūpa dhyāna). It says that in the sphere dominated by sensual desires (kāma), the aggregate of corporeality (rūpa) is dominant. In the sphere of perception dominated by subtle forms (rūpa dhātu), the aggregate of feelings is predominant, while in the formless sphere, it is the aggregate of consciousness that dominates. Thus the experience of all three is important. After experiencing all planes of perception, a yogi is led to contemplate all the compounded as sickness, prison, etc., and to insight meditation with the penetration into the Four Noble Truths. According to the state of a yogi, the Four Noble Truths are said to be of two kinds, namely truths and Noble Truths. The first belong to the unenlightened persons, while the second are realized after the path of seeing. The treatise is concluded with a rather detailed description of the practice of the five supernatural knowledges (abhijñā, 神通). In the explanation the emphasis is on the Bodhisattva practice of benefiting others while contemplating Emptiness, where all things remain in the state of being free from all real characteristics (无相). Thus, for example a Bodhisattva, while practicing the divine seeing, sees all sentient beings as being reborn and dying in accordance with their karma, but never gives rise to the concept of beings. He sees their corporeality without grasping the sign of corporeality, etc., and in the same way for all the other phenomena of perception, including the perception itself. The third treatise on meditation (K.1010) entitledA Brief Consideration of the Essential [Meditation] Methods (思维略要法) can be described in terms of eleven themes, starting with emphasis laid on one’s own effort without which much learning is said to be of no use. After that, the first meditation introduces the readers into the practice of the Four Divine Abodes (brahmavihāras). The treatise proclaims them to be the first meditation to be practiced by all wishing to attain the supreme Enlightment. However only the practice of loving kindness is dealt with in this part. It is said that by meditation on breath the boundaries between those who are liked, disliked or neither liked or disliked, a yogi can easily get an intuitive understanding of the sameness of all dharmas with certainty concerning thenon arising of dharmas (anutpattikadharmakṣānti, 无生法忍). The next meditation discussed is the contemplation of the repulsive (aśubhabhāvanā) in terms of thirty-six bodily parts that are said to lead for a Mahāyāna yogi to a rebirth in the Tusita heaven at the presence of Buddha Maitreya. 50 (6) Bhante Dhammadipa
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