The Changeless Nature

Buddha Nature 652. When bees are very irritated, they sting. Likewise, once anger hasarisen it brings suffering to the heart.3. Just as kernels or rice and other grains are masked by their outercovering — the husks, so also is the vision of the very essence ofbuddhahood obscured by the 'eggshell' of ignorance.4. Filth is something very unpleasant. The active states of thenegative affects can be likened to filth because they cause thosewho are involved in 'desire realm' 45 to indulge in the objectswhich bring sense gratification.5. When the wealth was covered up, the poor people, not knowing ofits presence, could not obtain its treasure. Likewise beings who arecorrespondingly poor (Arhats) have the vision of the spontaneously-presentjnana obscured by the karmic conditionings ofignorance.6. Just as the germ and so forth pierce through their seed's shell bytheir gradual growth, so also does insight into the thatness of thebuddha-nature dispel the obscurations to be abandoned throughinsight.7. Those who, through integration with the 'path of the realised' 46have overcome the beliefs that the 'destructible and multiple' 47might be a self, the very core of those things which must beabandoned for (the path of) insight to occur, still haveobscurations to be given up through the jnana of the path of cultivation;it is these that are being illustrated by the tattered rags.8. The impurities present in the first seven bodhisattva levels arelikened to the impurities of the confine of a womb. Freedom fromthem is like freedom from the womb and non-conceptual jnana islike the final maturation and birth of the royal child.9. The impurities connected with the last three bodhisattva levelsshould be known as being like the traces of clay on the goldenstatue. These are to be eliminated by the vajra-like samadhi 48of great beings (i. e. 10th level bodhisattvas).