Goodness, it is amazing to know what lengths the Bodhisattvas will go to convert the heathen! Yesterday, I received an out of print copy of the Shuramgamasamadhi Sutra (not to be confused with the Chinese Shuramgama Sutra), otherwise in English entitled, The Concentration of Heroic Progress Sutra. Thumbing through it, I came upon something that tickled my funny bone.
It seems that Bodhisattva Maragocaranupalipta (an obvious reference to the place of Mara the Evil One who tempted the Buddha) decided to seduce some lustful daughters of the gods called, Devakanyas. The Bodhisattva by showing his beautiful body to the lustful Devakanyas hoped to convert them to the Buddha’s teaching. Just as he suspected, they went for his gorgeous body.
Seeing his body, the Devakanyas said, “If that man makes love to us, we will all comply with his orders.” The Bodhisattva possessing supermundane senses could see that they were ripe for conversion having the requisite conditions for being delivered. After he sized up the minds of the two hundred Devakanyas “he also created two hundred magnificent belveders for intimacy.”
Thereupon the Devakanyas found themselves sexually engaged with the Bodhisattva after which their desires were thoroughly gratified and their craving for sensual pleasures quenched. After their conversion it is said that they honored the Bodhisattva who expounded the teachings that were suitable for them in order to arouse complete Bodhicitta (awakening to the animative power of pure Mind).
What I take from this is that mind or citta, in its primordial non-knowledge of itself, is raw desire, that is, incompletion (avidya). Such desire can only be fully quenched by mind experiencing itself, purely (cittamatra) in which mind realizes Mind.
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