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The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) Gishin Tokiwa The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) Gishin Tokiwa I. The tathagata becomes a bodhisattva, entering the human womb: The Mahavastu (Mv) states:1) When the bodhisattva entered the mother's womb, she could walk and stay with ease, sit and lie easily, because of the bodhisattva's superb influence. From this we know it was believed that what Lady Maya, wife of Sakya- king Suddhodana, had conceived was not just a sattva but a bodhisattva. The My further tells us that this bodhisattva, before leaving the Tusita heaven so as to enter the human womb, had already gone through all the ten stages of practice2) and attained the ultimate virtues of the tathagata.3) He was said to be free in the midst of samsara from retrogression from his attainment.4) Besides, the number of such a bodhisattva is beyond counting.5) The aim of such bodhisattvas entering the human womb is said to be to help those in samsara realize their samsara way of being and be emancipated from it.6) They are not on the way to but from tathagatahood to realize their aim. In other words, they are tathagatas that have become bodhisattvas so as to get all the sentient beings to be awakened to their original way of being. In the Gand avyuha sutra Lady Maya says to Sudhana that she would be mother to all those future tathagatas who will become bodhisattvas.7) The Dasabhumika sutra states that the deeds of the bodhisattva at the tenth stage of practice, i. e., dwelling in the Tusita heaven, ceasing to live there and advancing to enter, stay in, and get. born from the womb, becoming an ancho- rite, getting Awakened, being solicited for instruction, turning the dharma- wheel, and manif estng Great Death these are called all the tathagatas' deeds (sarvatathagatakaryam).8) These bodhisattvas enter the human womb, for exam- ple, while they are free from doing so. According to the Mv, gods who go to -507- The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) (G. Tokiwa) (2) celebrate the bodhisattva's birth sing the following hymn:9) His body is not smeared by the womb's impurity. He is the finest lotus flower, born in water. Thus we know the term "bodhisattva" means that Awakening (bodhi) takes the form of a sentient being (sattva) so that all the sentient beings may attain emancipation from the suffering of samsara. In other words, it means Awaken- ing itself lives and dies, free from life-and-death. That is exactly what the Prajnaparamita sutras including the Vajracchedika call "bodhisattvayana." It is what the Dasabhumika calls "sarvatathagatakaryam." And it seems that the tathagata's entering the womb (garbhavakrantih) represents alll such tathagata deeds. This leads us to the conclusion that the tathagata that has entered the womb (tathagato garbhavakrantah) means the one in the bodhisattvayana, that is, a bodhisattva. The term "tathagatagarbhah", which appears in such mahayana texts as the Tathagatagarbha sutra, the Mahaparinirvana sutra, the Lankavatara sutra, and the Ratnagotravibhaga sastra, etc., has the same word-struture as "bodhi- sattvah". "Garbha" or the womb represents the samsara of life-and-death, that is, sattva. Tathagatagarbha may mean either tathagata in garbhe or tathagata's garbha. The former.means tathagata taking the form of life-and-death. The latter means tathagata's life-and-death, or the life-and-death that is free from life-and-death. The. way of being that is expressed by the terms, bodhisattva and tathagatagarbha, is also expressed as "heroic-advance (suramgama) samadhi" in the Suramgamasamadhi sutra. Towards the end of its explanation of the content of this samadhi the sutra states that, while bodhisattvas enter the womb, leave the house to become an- chorites, do penance, go to the seat of Awakening, subdue "death", attain Awa- kening, turn the dharma-wheel, and manifest Great Death and the decay of the body, they neither lose their original bodhisattva-nature nor enter sheer anni- hilation without the residue of life-and-death, and that exactly that is the con- tent of heroic-advance samadhi.10) Such bodhisattvas have already finished the ten stages of practice.11) The world-honored one, Sakyamuni, who is said to expound this sutra, states that he himself abides the samadhi.12) -506- (3) The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) (G. Tokiwa) From all this we know that the idea of the tathagata entering the human womb, mythological as it may sound, is considered to represent all the religious acts in their deepest sense; that is to say, the idea indicates the way of thinking which considers nirvana to be the original subject of life-and-death. We also know that that is the most ultimately basic and universal matter so that it is far from being limited to any particular persons. When they developed that idea for the life-story of Gautama Sakyamuni, they had the Maha vastu, the Lalitavistara, and so forth. In all this we must say we have none other than the Buddhist philosophy of religion. The term bodhisattva is often taken to mean a sattva on the way "upward" to bodhi. But its authentic meaning in Buddhism seems to be one which ex- presses the most active way of being, a "downward" act, as it were, of the bodhi or Original Self that assumes the form of a sentient being so as to have the other sentient beings be awakened to their Original Self.13) It should be a term that means the ground upon which the upward, Way-seeking manner of being fulfills itself, the "Original Face" which turns all the upward acts into downward ones. Bodhisattva is the term deeply connected with the idea, the Original Self of all the sentient beings. It differs from the Christian idea, the incarnation of God.14) The latter is a matter limited to a particular person. In that case, however, even incarnation would lose its universal ground. The same is true of the Buddhist idea, the tathagata entering the womb. If it were limited to a particular person so that that person's unworldly virtue might be celebrated, then the event would no more even be a greant event (mahavastu) to all. The idea of "heroic-advance samadhi" would also be impossible to preserve its universality as well as profundity. II. The samddhi-subject of life-and-death: The idea of "heroic-advance samadhi" tells us that it would not exhaust the true content of samadhi or dhyana to take it to be a mere tranquillity separa- ted from motion. Samadhi, which is free from motion, is the source of motion, and is motion as well. By samadhi one means not only something transcendent of the sufferings of life-and-death but also the sufferings of life-and-death the- -505- The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) (G. Tokiwa) (4) mselves. Here disclosal of the sufferings o f life-and-death- and freedom from them are one. And that is the manner of being of the "samadhisub ject of life- and-death." The My describes how Siddhartha attained ultimate Awakening.15) He realizes as follows. This is suffering; this is that which causes suffering; this is the cessation of suf- fering; this is the right path leading to the cessation of suffering....... When this is, this other is; when this is not, this other is not. When this arises, this other arises; when this ceases, this other ceases. Conditioned by not-knowing there come to be root-acts (samskarah); conditioned by the root-acts there comes to be disc- rimination.......The whole great sufferings come to arise in this way.......Because not-knowing ceases, root-acts cease; because root-acts cease, discrimination ceases. ...... The whole great sufferings come to cease in this way. The root-acts lack ete- rnity; the root-acts are all sufferings; all that hold their own characteristics are free from them. This is calmess; this is ultimacy; this is being as it is; this is freedom from perversion; this is the relinquishment of all the remnants of samsara; this is the becalming (samatha) of the root-acts; this is the cutting off of attach- ments to the characteristics everything holds as its own (dharmopacchedo); this is the extinction of thirst; this is freedom from covetousness; this is cessation, Great Death. According to the above description, man's root-acts are not eternal. When because of not-knowing root-acts are attached to and taken to be eternal, they become the source of sufferings. But everything that holds its own characteristics (sarvadharmah) is originally free from what it apprears to be; everything is empty of its own characteristics (anatmanah). That realization becalms attach- ments to one's root-acts. Seeing all this is the first of the eightf old right path, "total seeing" ( samyagdrsti). The one who sees this is the last of the eight, "total samadhi" (samyaksamadhi). The samadhi -subject free from everything, including what is seen, sees the Four Noble Truths. Vasubandhu in the Abhidharmakosa 6, below k 54,16)gives Master Ghosaka's interpretation of the eightfold right path. Ultimate insight is likened to the dharma-wheel turning: total seeing, together with total thinking, total effort, and total remembrance, is compared to the spokes; total wording, total deed, -504- (5) The Tathagata Entering the Womb (Garbha) (G. Tokiwa) and total life, to the hub; and total samadhi, to the rim. Vasubandhu gives reasons: The wheel is speedy, is quick in leaving, overcomes what has been hard to, ascertains the overcoming, and is able to go both up and down. The dharma-wheel turns without hindrance because it is the functioning of the samadhi-subject of life-and-death.
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