The Tree of Enlightenment

plete replica or imitation of the careers of the Bodhisattvas and
the Buddhas. e first part of the meditation is a replica of the
Bodhisattva’s accomplishment of merit and knowledge. e second
part is a replica of the Buddha’s phenomenal and transcendental
dimensions.
I would like to return to the notion of meditation and wisdom.
is point serves to emphasize the complete integrity
of Buddhism, because it is absolutely characteristic of all the
Buddhist traditions to insist on a fusion of concentration and
insight, a union of tranquillity and penetrative vision or wisdom.
In the context of the Vajrayana meditation, too, this union
is essential. As the practitioner meditates on emptiness in the
context of the imitation of the Bodhisattva’s accomplishment
of knowledge, he or she must unite meditation and wisdom. In
this case, his or her ability to concentrate the mind on an object
is applied to the understanding of emptiness. Whereas formerly
he or she may have cultivated the ability to concentrate his or
her mind with the help of an external support, such as a blue
disk, here, in the context of the Vajrayana meditation, he or she
focuses directly on the understanding of emptiness. In that way,
through the meditation on emptiness, he or she imitates the
Bodhisattva’s accomplishment of knowledge through cultivation
of the perfections of meditation and wisdom.
ere must also be a union of meditation and wisdom in the
context of visualizing the tutelary deity and reciting the mantra.
Here the objects of concentration are the visualized form
of the tutelary deity and the sound of the mantra, but the practitioner
has to integrate his or her understanding of emptiness
with his or her concentration on the form of the tutelary deity
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