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The Ten Patiences

The Buddhas, with great compassion,
Liberate and transform sentient beings.
Such liberation is also like a conjured effect.
By their transformative power, the Buddhas explain the Dharma.

Knowing that all mundane things are conjured effects,
The Bodhisattva does not discriminate among them.
The various distinctions among conjured events
Result from differences in karma.

Cultivating the practices of bodhi,
He adorns the treasury of conjured effects.
With infinite good deeds he adorns it,
Just as karma creates the world.

The dharma of conjured effects is beyond discrimination,
And does not differentiate among dharmas.
Both of these are quiescent,
As are the Bodhisattva’s practices. 

The sea of conjured effects is understood with wisdom;
The nature of conjured effects imprints all worlds.
Conjured effects neither come into being nor cease to be;
The same is true of wisdom.

With the Tenth Patience he sagaciously observes
Sentient beings and all dharmas:
How quiescent their essential nature is,
Like the void, belonging nowhere.

Attaining to this void-like wisdom,
He leaves all attachments behind forever.
Like the void, empty of everything,
He is unimpeded throughout the worlds.

Patience in Perceiving All as the Void that he achieves—
Its power, like the void, is inexhaustible.
States of being resemble empty space,
Yet he discriminates not as to emptiness.

The void has no essential nature.
It is not subject to annihilation,
And is absent of various discriminations.
The power of wisdom is also like this.

Without a beginning, the void
Has neither a middle nor an end;
Equally unfathomable in its expanse
Is the Bodhisattva’s wisdom.

With that he contemplates the nature of all dharmas:
How everything is like the void,
Neither coming into being nor ceasing to be.
That is the Bodhisattva’s attainment.

While abiding in the dharma of emptiness,
He still expounds for sentient beings,
Subduing all the demons
Through the expedients of this patience. 

Worldly characteristics, however different,
Are all empty of characteristics.
Entering that which is uncharacterized,
He regards all characteristics as equal.

He uses a single expedient
To universally enter all worlds;
He knows the dharmas of the three periods of time
To be equal in their void-like nature.  

His wisdom, his voice,
The Bodhisattva’s body—
Their nature is void-like,
Completely quiescent.

These ten kinds of patience 
Are cultivated by the disciple of the Buddha;
With his mind deftly dwelling in peace therein,
He expounds dharmas for all sentient beings.

Learning them well,
He achieves great power.
The power of Dharma and the power of wisdom
Provide expedients on his path to bodhi.  

Versed in the method of patience,
He accomplishes unimpeded wisdom,
Excelling the multitudes
In turning the unsurpassed Dharma wheel.

His extensive practices
Are immeasurable in scope;
Only the Taming Teachers’ sea of wisdom,
Can know them in detail.

Renouncing the self for the sake of cultivation,
He enters the profound Dharma nature.
His mind constantly abides in pure dharmas,
With which he ministers to the multitudes.

The number of sentient beings and dust motes in lands
Could still be reckoned;
But no limit to the Bodhisattva’s meritorious virtue
Can be ascertained.

The Bodhisattva manages to achieve
These ten kinds of patience;
His wisdom and practices remain
Unfathomable to the multitudes.

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