17 October 1990, The Classification Involving Sixteen Types of Emptiness

There is the emptiness of observing subjects, / Of what is observed and what serve as the body of these, / The emptiness of the bases for locations, / Of the seer of this and also the way it sees. / The objectives are also forms of emptiness: / The objectives, also empty, are as follows: / In order to gain the two forms of excellence, / To benefit beings in every period,

To avoid rejecting the cycle of existence, / For the sake of performing inexhaustible good, / To fully clarify the potential as well, / In order to gain the signs as well as the marks, / And to clarify the buddha qualities, / Bodhisattvas undertake the practice; / The emptiness here is the lack of entity / Within any person and any phenomenon; / What exists is that entity free of entity, / Which is quite another perspective on emptiness.

If there were no such thing as a state of affliction, / All embodied creatures would be free; / If there were no such thing as a purified state, / No result would come of effort made. / So there is no affliction nor its absence, / And that is neither pure nor impure.

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