Ornament of Precious Liberation

Just as it is possible to obtain the silver that is in ore, the oil that is in sesame seeds, and the butter that is in milk, so is it possible to attain the buddhahood that is in all sentient beings.

—GAMPOPA

Contents

Foreword by His Holiness the Karmapa

Editor’s Preface

Translator’s Introduction

Ornament of Precious Liberation: A Gem of Sublime Dharma

GAMPOPA SÖNAM RINCHEN (1079–1153)

Author’s Preface

I. The Prime Cause

1. Buddha Nature

II. The Basis

2. A Precious Human Existence

III. The Condition

3. Relying on the Dharma Master

IV. The Means:

The Dharma Master’s Instruction

4. The Impermanence of Conditioned Existence

5. The Suffering of Samsara

6. Karma and Its Effects

7. Loving Kindness and Compassion

8. Taking Refuge

9. The Proper Adoption of Bodhicitta

10. Precepts for Generating Aspiring Bodhicitta

11. Presentation of the Six Perfections

12. The Perfection of Generosity

13. The Perfection of Moral Discipline

14. The Perfection of Forbearance

15. The Perfection of Diligence

16. The Perfection of Meditative Concentration

17. The Perfection of Wisdom

18. The Presentation of the [Five] Paths

19. The Presentation of the Levels

V. The Result

20. The Bodies of Perfect Buddhahood

VI. Enlightened Activities of the Buddhas

21. Enlightened Activities of the Buddhas

Notes

Glossary

Bibliography

Index

About the Contributors

Foreword

When we consider the life and achievements of Lord Gampopa, it is self-evident that he was extraordinary and highly talented. Nine hundred years ago in the snow land of Tibet, few people had such great capacity. Tibetan Buddhism in general and the Dakpo Kagyü in particular owe him a profound debt of gratitude.

Before he renounced the life of a householder to become a monk, he was an accomplished physician, widely respected not just for his knowledge and ability to heal but also for his compassion and his concern for the welfare of others. In addition, he was a devoted husband and a loving father, a good human being. After his ordination at the age of twenty-five, he focused his mind on the Dharma.

There were many different lineages at that time in Tibet. Some only practiced the sutra teachings, others were purely tantric, and there was much mutual suspicion. The genius of Lord Gampopa was to bring together these seemingly conflicting traditions. Having established a strong base in the sutra tradition of the Kadampas, he met the great yogi Milarepa and received the instructions on the six yogas and mahāmudrā that had been passed down from the great Indian mahāsiddhas Nāropa and Maitripa. Gampopa was able to unite these two traditions, weaving them into a seamless path to liberation in what is known as the confluence of mahāmudrā and Kadam.

Milarepa himself acknowledged Gampopa’s greatness when he predicted that future generations would not call his own lineage the practice lineage of Milarepa but would call it Dakpo Kagyü. Of the three Kagyü forefathers, Gampopa was the only one to be ordained. Marpa the Translator and Milarepa were lay practitioners. When Gampopa, following the instructions he had received from Milarepa, settled at the remote Daklha Gampo hermitage, a large community of meditators gradually gathered around him, and thus Gampopa established the first monastery of the Dakpo Kagyü.

Gampopa’s own teaching practices became the root from which developed the distinctive system that all the Dakpo Kagyü schools follow to this day. Students first studied the lamrim teachings on the stages of the path from the Kadam tradition, and then they were allowed to study mahāmudrā and other tantric practices. Hence, the extant lineages within the Dakpo Kagyü — the Drikung, Drukpa, Karma Kamtsang, Taklung, and Barom — resemble the branches of a family tree, and Lord Gampopa is our common ancestor. The Ornament of Precious Liberation is our great family treasure and our shared inheritance. lt is my aspiration that through this text the different traditions of the Dakpo Kagyu will rediscover their common ancestry and become a joyous and harmonious family once more.

We should consider reading Gampopa’s Ornament of Precious Liberation as unlike reading other books. This text has the power of a direct transmission from master to student. Gampopa himself promised that in the future those who were unable to meet him personally should not despair, because reading his two texts Ornament of Precious Liberation and Jewel Garland of the Supreme Path would be identical to receiving the teachings directly from him.

Finally, I would like to commend Ken and Katia Holmes for bringing Gampopa’s words directly to English speakers. Though there are several earlier translations of Ornament of Precious Liberation, this translation is the most readable and faithful, and the extensive footnotes will be of help to practitioners and scholars alike.

The Seventeenth Karmapa Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Dharamsala

Editor’s Preface

The text in this volume has a long and rich history in the world of Tibetan Buddhism. Gampopa’s Ornament of Precious Liberation remains to this day the quintessential understanding of the Buddhist path to enlightenment in the Kagyü school of Tibetan Buddhism. Trained in the Kadam teachings stemming from the Bengali master Atiśa as well in the Mahāmudrā instructions of Marpa Lotsāwa and his famed disciple Milarepa, Gampopa presents in his work a unique blending of two important streams of Tibetan spiritual instructions.

The step-by-step instructions developed in this work continue to guide and elevate the attentive reader and practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism today. Imbued by Gampopa with so much insight and helpful instruction, it is not surprising that this manual was considered a classic of Buddhist literature in Tibet. With this new translation, students and teachers of Tibetan Buddhism will have a chance to directly engage with the insights and instructions of a great spiritual master. For the general reader, it offers an opportunity to appreciate the richness of the Tibetan tradition and its creative synthesis of the vast corpus of classical Indian Buddhist teachings.

As the founder and director of the Institute of Tibetan Classics and editor of the present volume, it has been an honor for me to be part of this important translation project, which first appeared as part of an anthology of three path texts in Stages of the Buddha’s Teachings, volume 10 of The Library of Tibetan Classics. I thank Ken Holmes for translating Gampopa’s words into elegant English with such care and diligence. I thank my wife, Sophie Boyer-Langri, for her countless contributions to the work of the Institute. I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Tsadra Foundation, who generously funded the direct costs of this translation project. The Hershey Family Foundation has supported the Institute of Tibetan Classics during its first decade, for which I am deeply grateful. I would also like to acknowledge the Ing Foundation for its generous patronage of the Institute since 2008. Finally, I thank the Scully Peretsman Foundation for supporting my own work, enabling me to edit this precious volume.

It is my sincere hope that this translation will be of benefit to many people. Through the efforts of all those who have been involved in this noble venture, may all beings enjoy peace and happiness.

Thupten Jinpa

Translator’s Introduction

The work translated in this volume is the well-known Ornament of Precious Liberation by Gampopa Sönam Rinchen (1079–1153). It has been familiar to Western readers for over fifty years as The Jewel Ornament of Liberation, thanks to the translation by Herbert Guenther, which was so welcome and excellent for its time.¹ The text presents Gampopa’s explanation of the essential elements involved in a gradual ascent of the bodhisattva path, from the beginner level up to the final awakening of supreme buddhahood. Gampopa was a founding master of the Kagyü tradition and is famous within it as the one who integrated the spiritual and literary legacy of the Kadam school.

Ornament of Precious Liberation is the main textbook for the study of Mahayana Buddhism in the Kagyü monastic schools and colleges. It is seen as a meditator’s textbook, inasmuch as it is not an eloquent, scholarly masterpiece or an elaborate discussion but a need-to-know manual of essentials for a meditator. The language is down to earth and direct. The eminent twentieth-century Tibetan scholar Kyapjé Kalu Rinpoché, recognized as an authority by lamas of all Tibetan schools, presented this text as an enlightened being’s (i.e., Gampopa’s) overview of the vast scriptures of nontantric Buddhism and commented, "Even if you want to spend the rest of your life meditating in a cave, you must know Gampopa’s Ornament of Precious Liberation by heart and you must understand Maitreya’s buddhanature teachings." In this work, Gampopa carefully picks out the most salient points on each topic and, more importantly, provides students with an overall Dharma framework of topics into which subsequent studies can easily be slotted. Gampopa is always careful to back up his statements or summaries with quotations from the two main Indian Mahayana lineages. Although this is a textbook for Vajrayana meditators, the work remains exclusively a Mahayana treatise except for one or two minor references to his guru Milarepa and to the practice of Mahāmudrā.²

The writing, like most such texts, is not, and is not meant to be, an immersive read, unless one is already intimate with the terrain. Meanings are not elaborated. The discursive work is left to the Dharma master who teaches it. Once learned by heart as an aide-memoire, however, it provides teacher and student alike with an instant, multi-tiered reference for the structure of the bodhisattva path.

TENRIM

This work is a manual of the stages of the doctrine, or tenrim (bstan rim), in the tradition of the Kadam monastery of Sangphu.³ The tenrim genre aims at leading students to transform their outlook and lives by internalizing a series of ascending spiritual truths through a series of preparatory reflections, beginning with the preciousness of their human birth and then moving on to its precariousness — the contemplation of mortality turning students’ minds away from the things of this life. Reflecting on the consequences of harmful deeds that will be experienced at the time of death and in the life to come inspires a strong desire to ensure that one’s future birth is in a pleasant realm. Then, reflecting on the drawbacks of life in all realms in the wheel of existence (samsara), even human and divine ones, inspires students to desire liberation (nirvana). Yet personal liberation for oneself alone is also not a perfectly satisfactory solution. The student is encouraged to strive compassionately for the highest spiritual goal — the perfect awakening of a buddha in order to benefit all living beings. Such altruistic aspirations and practices are characteristic of the bodhisattva, and the bodhisattva practices leading to buddhahood are the main subject of this text, practices for developing such qualities as universal compassion and the highest insight into the nature of reality. The treatise ends with a chapter extolling the virtues of a buddha’s awakening, the highest destination on the path.

Readers of Tibetan Buddhist manuals on beginning practice will be familiar with the preliminary contemplations described above, which parallel the so-called four thoughts that turn the mind, four contemplations that inspire a person to reject worldly life and pursue spiritual practice: the reflections on (1) the difficulty of finding a well-endowed human existence and on (2) the impermanence of life (which together turn the mind away from this life and toward future lives); and the reflections on (3) the defects of samsara and on (4) the workings of karmic causality (which together induce the mind to reject samsara and desire liberation). Many beginners’ manuals in Tibetan Buddhist literature draw on these contemplations and proceed in a graduated manner through the specific practices.

Tenrim works largely descend from Atiśa. Unlike most lamrim works, tenrim texts do not frame their presentation around the three spiritual capacities, although they may certainly mention these three types of beings. Tenrim texts are Buddhist manuals that expound the stages (rim pa) of the Mahayana doctrine (bstan pa). Works of this genre were first transmitted via students of Atiśa (982–1054) at Sangphu Neuthok Monastery south of Lhasa. The earliest major text of the tenrim genre we have today is the Great Treatise on the Stages of the Doctrine, or simply Great Tenrim, of Drolungpa Lodrö Jungné (eleventh–twelfth centuries). Drolungpa’s work was perhaps the most extensive compendium of Buddhist teachings attempted by a Tibetan when it first appeared.

GAMPOPA SÖNAM RINCHEN

Gampopa, also known as Dakpo Rinpoché, was born in 1079 in the Dakpo district of central Tibet.⁴ He originally trained as a physician, hence the other common title he is known by, Dakpo Lhajé (Doctor of Dakpo). He began his adult life as a married layman and only began intensive religious practice after experiencing the shock of the sudden deaths first of his children and then of his beloved wife when he was still in his early twenties. After extensive studies in other traditions, he eventually became a foremost disciple of Jetsun Milarepa (1040–1123). He had received full monastic ordination at the age of twenty-five and had sought out tantric initiations in Lower Dakpo from the master Maryul Loden. He had also studied intensively in Phenyul under masters of the Kadam tradition such as Jayulpa, Nyukrumpa, and Chakri Gongkhawa. Jayulpa (or Jayulwa) Shönu Ö (1075–1138) was a student of Chengawa Tsultrim Bar (1038–1103), and Nyukrumpa was in the lineage of Geshé Naljorpa Chenpo (1015–78). Following significant dreams, Gampopa left these teachers to seek out (with difficulty) Milarepa, from whom he received the Kagyü key instructions, especially those on inner heat (gtum mo), which he intensively and very successfully practiced for thirteen months in 1110–11. After meditating for an additional three years, he attained awakening. He returned to see Milarepa twelve years later (1123), but the master had just passed away. As instructed by his guru Milarepa, he continued a primarily contemplative life in solitude at Daklha Gampo for some years, but his karma inexorably drew talented disciples to him, and thus naturally began, as predicted for him there by Milarepa, his time as a guru and Dharma master.

For his multitude of disciples, Gampopa established the first Kagyü monastery at Daklha Gampo. It is not for nothing that virtually the entire Kagyü lineage in Tibet calls itself the Dakpo Kagyü (literally, teaching lineage of Dakpo) in his honor. The broad-spectrum Buddhism he taught was nurtured by four main disciples, including the Karmapa and his subsequent lineage of reincarnations. The so-called four major and eight minor Kagyu lineages trace themselves back to him and stem from those main disciples.⁵

The chapter on Gampopa in the Hundred Thousand Songs of Milarepa by Tsangnyön Heruka (1452–1507) tells more about his life story and indicates his spiritual standing as a tenth-level bodhisattva who had served thousands of buddhas before his birth in Tibet. It also identifies him as the person predicted by the Buddha in the King of Meditation Sutra to perpetuate the teachings of that sutra at a later age, appearing as a doctor in Tibet. Those teachings, on the absolute nature of reality and particularly of one’s own mind, are known in the Kagyü tradition as Mahāmudrā and constitute its greatest treasure. Gampopa is seen as being the reincarnation of Candraprabhakumāra, the main interlocutor of the Buddha in that sutra.

He became the perfect heir, through Milarepa, to the Marpa Kagyü twin lineages of first the Mahāmudrā teachings of the great adept Saraha and secondly the highest yoga tantra practices gathered by the Indian great tantric adept (mahāsiddha) Tilopa.⁶ Gampopa was also, as we have seen, an accomplished scholar within the early Kadam tradition. Thus, in Gampopa, we find a fusion of three elements. First, he was an exemplary monk, and Dakla Gampo Monastery was the start of monasticism within the Kagyü lineage. Second, through his mastery of the Kadam tradition, he was a great exponent of Indian Mahayana Buddhism, transmitting both of its major streams — those from Nāgārjuna and Asaṅga. Third, he was a main tantric disciple of the famous yogi Milarepa and holder of the tantras and Mahāmudrā teachings mentioned above, that Milarepa’s guru, Marpa, had so meticulously sought in three major journeys to India.

The great Indian master Nāropa had predicted that the Kagyü lineage descending from his disciple Marpa would, like the offspring of the divine raptors the garuḍas, go from strength to strength over the generations. This proved true in the way its later masters integrated into it other lineages of teachings, compared often to new tributaries joining a river and strengthening its flow. In this context, Gampopa is famous among the earlier Kagyü hierarchs for his work integrating monasticism and the bodhisattva teachings of the Kadam tradition. However, Gampopa’s case is not so much one of bringing to the Kagyü what was not already present but one of codifying and then establishing those particular elements of Dharma for the Kagyü tradition.

Unlike the earlier Kadam master Atiśa, Gampopa was neither a reformer nor a restorer. Contemporary Kagyü masters, such as Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche and Khenpo Lhabu, make it clear that it would be a serious misunderstanding to think that the teachings in the Ornament were newly inserted into the Kagyü lineage by Gampopa. A thorough knowledge that the deities of highest yoga tantra are intricate, perfect symbols (brda) is implicit to the view needed for their practice. What they symbolize by literally putting a face on them are primarily the basic Buddhist teachings of Abhidharma and Mahayana, meaning that an excellent grasp of those teachings is required of a tantric meditator and especially of a master. Marpa had to have mastered those nontantric aspects of Dharma while in India for his tantric practice to be successful. His two main teachers there, Nāropa and Maitripa, had indeed been eminent scholars earlier in their lives. Although Marpa’s Dharma heir Milarepa is seen romantically by many these days as a poet and a simple hermit, no one knows just how much of the doctrinal Dharma inheritance Marpa had passed on to him in their years together before the latter set off to his famous twelve years of solitary retreat. Milarepa’s teaching songs about topics like the six perfections betray a master class quality that only someone sufficiently learned could have. Milarepa’s heir, Gampopa, unlike his predecessors who had relatively small followings, is said to have attracted more than fifty thousand disciples to the mountain retreat where he first practiced in solitude. This gave him the ideal opportunity to lay solid and broad-based Dharma foundations for the Kagyü lineages that would stem from him. In particular, this work embodies the Mahayana material he presented as being what Kagyü followers need to know, both for its own sake and, very importantly, for the sake of their practice of tantra.

ORNAMENT OF PRECIOUS LIBERATION

Like the Great Tenrim of Drolungpa, which probably preceded it by a few decades, Ornament of Precious Liberation (Dam chos yid bzhin gyi nor bu thar pa rin po che’i rgyan) is a systematic exposition of the bodhisattva’s path. In its overall structure, it is both more penetratingly and more broadly conceived than Drolungpa’s work, though it omits none of Drolungpa’s main topics. Its structure thus may represent an original plan conceived or adapted by Gampopa. He confirms his connection with Atiśa’s tradition by quoting Atiśa’s Lamp for the Path to Awakening prominently numerous times.

Within the Kagyü tradition, masters often speak of Gampopa’s three key works. This one, his longest, is a tenrim, whereas his short stanza the Four Dharmas (chos bzhi) is traditionally explained at some length, through oral tradition, as a lamrim, presenting the three types of Dharma practitioners. His middle-length work, Jewel Garland of the Supreme Path (Lam mchog rin chen ’phreng ba), is a compendium of his personal advice (man ngag) concerning all levels and vehicles of practice. They are held to be the short, middling, and long versions of his overview teachings, as opposed to his specialized texts.

Gampopa divides his treatise into six main topics:

1.The prime cause for attaining highest awakening: the buddha nature (tathāgatagarbha)

2.The corporeal ground for achieving awakening: the precious human existence

3.The contributing condition that impels one to achieve it: the Dharma master

4.The means for achieving it: the instructions of the Dharma master

5.The result that is so achieved: the bodies (kāya) of buddhahood

6.The enlightened activities that follow the attainment of buddhahood, i.e., the spontaneous benefitting of living beings through buddha activities free from conceptual thought

To expound these topics in more detail, Gampopa divides his treatise into twenty-one chapters, one for each of those six main sections except for section 4, to which he devotes sixteen chapters. This is justified by the fact that section 4 contains the general instructions — the bodhisattva’s perfections and so forth. We should note that, unlike earlier tenrim authors, Gampopa expounds the prime cause — buddha nature — as his first chapter. Gampopa also includes at the end of his treatise a distinct section on the enlightened activities that manifest spontaneously for one who attains buddhahood.

The six topics are causally related and can be illustrated through the oftused metaphor of a plant. The whole genetic code determining the result is contained in the prime cause, the seed of buddha nature. Nothing else on earth has that. The seed needs to be planted in the right ground, a precious human existence, so as to germinate properly. The Dharma master is like the sunlight, warmth, rain, and nutrients that are contributing conditions triggering and nourishing the germination of the seed. The chemical interaction that determines the transformation is the means, the teachings suitable for each disciple. The full result comes with the fruition of enlightenment, and enlightened activity provides all the nourishment to beings and disperses the seeds for its own replication. Gampopa, in short, gives us the ultimate gardening manual.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I shall ever be indebted to Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoché for first taking me carefully through Gampopa’s entire text, term by term, idea by idea, on three separate occasions, and to Khenchen the Ninth Thrangu Rinpoché for his subsequent clarifications over many months of revision as he taught it in extenso in Kagyu Samye Ling. Most of all, I am grateful to Katia Holmes, whose years of devoted work on this text produced the initial draft that formed the basis for our first published translation, under the title Gems of Dharma, Jewels of Freedom in 1995. I was delighted then to bring to fruition the task that the Sixteenth Gyalwang Karmapa had entrusted to us but that ill health prevented her from completing. Since then, I am grateful that the support of the Institute of Tibetan Classics under the guidance of Thupten Jinpa and with funding from the Tsadra Foundation has allowed me to bring the translation to its present form. The excellent work of their teams on the Tibetan text, sourcing each quotation, comparing editions, and researching so many points, has truly impressed me and added a vital dimension to this translation beyond my best hopes. Every credit to them. I am delighted now for this opportunity to take this work forward, bringing it to a wider public and contributing to the never-ending duty of us translators to one day render perfectly Gampopa’s thought in English.

Ornament of Precious Liberation

A WISH-FULFILLING GEM OF SUBLIME DHARMA

Gampopa Sönam Rinchen

Author’s Preface

I prostrate to Youthful Mañjuśrī.⁷

Having paid homage to the buddhas, their spiritual heirs, the sublime Dharma,

and also to the gurus who are the root of all these,

I will now write, through the gracious kindness of revered Milarepa,

this Gem of Precious Dharma, a Wish-Fulfilling Jewel for both my own and others’ benefit.

Generally, phenomena can be subsumed into the two classes of samsara and nirvana. That which is known as samsara is, by nature, emptiness, taking the form of illusions and characterized by suffering. That which is known as nirvana is also, by nature, emptiness, taking the form of the exhaustion, then disappearance, of the illusions and characterized by liberation from all suffering.

Who is deluded by these illusions of samsara? All sentient beings of its three realms.

On what are the illusions based? The illusions are projected onto emptiness.

What causes the delusion? It occurs through great ignorance.

In what way do the illusions manifest? Their illusions take the form of the experiences of the six classes of beings.

What would be a suitable metaphor for such an illusion? This resembles the illusion experienced in one’s sleep and dreams.

Since when have these illusions been happening? Since time without beginning.

What is wrong with them? One experiences nothing but suffering.

When will the delusion become pristine awareness? It does so when highest enlightenment is reached.⁸ Those who think that illusion may dissolve on its own should be aware that samsara is renowned for being endless.

Having, in the above way, carefully considered samsara in terms of it being an illusion, the extent of its suffering, its duration, and that it is not self-dispelling, strive in all earnestness and with great diligence, from this very moment onward, to attain unsurpassable enlightenment.

What exactly is needed to strive so? The synopsis⁹ is:

Prime cause, basis, condition, means, results, and activity: by these six general key terms should the wise know peerless enlightenment.

This means that one needs to know (1) the prime cause for highest enlightenment, (2) the beings whose existence forms a basis for achieving it, (3) the condition that incites that attainment, (4) the means by which it is attained, (5) the results of it being attained, and (6) the enlightened activity once there has been such attainment. These will be explained, in the above order, as being the following:

The prime cause is buddha nature.

The basis is a most precious human existence.

The special condition is the Dharma master.

The means is the Dharma master’s instruction.

The results are the bodies of perfect buddhahood.

The activity is to nonconceptually fulfill the welfare of beings.

This is merely an outline of the main structure of this text. What follows is a detailed explanation of each point.

Part I. The Prime Cause

1. Buddha Nature

The line The prime cause is buddha nature states the following. As mentioned above, you need to gain freedom from the deluded nature of samsara and to attain highest enlightenment. However, you might well wonder, "Even if we or other ordinary people¹⁰ like us were to try very hard, how could we ever possibly attain enlightenment?" In truth, anyone who practices with great effort cannot fail to reach enlightenment. Why? Because all forms of conscious life, including ourselves, possess its prime cause. Within us is buddha nature. The King of Meditation Sutra states:

Buddha nature totally permeates all beings.¹¹

The shorter Great [Passing into] Nirvana Sutra says:

All sentient beings possess buddha nature.¹²

Further, the longer Great [Passing into] Nirvana Sutra says:

Just as butter, for example, exists in milk as something totally permeating it, so does buddha nature permeate all sentient beings.¹³

The Ornament of Mahayana Sutras also states:

Suchness is the same

for all and everyone; it is that which is pure.

Since this is the Tathāgata,

all beings are endowed with this essence. MSA 10:37

If this is so, you may wonder why sentient beings are endowed with buddha nature. It is because: (1) dharmakāya, emptiness, pervades all beings, (2) the universal essence (dharmatā), suchness (tathatā), is without differentiation, and (3) every sentient being has the potential to become a buddha. This is just what is stated in the Uttaratantra, where it says:

Because the Buddha’s body pervades all,

because suchness is without differentiation,

and because they possess the potential,

every living being at all times has buddha nature. RGV 1:28

To explain the first reason, dharmakāya, emptiness, pervades all beings, here the Buddha is embodied in the dharmakāya, and the dharmakāya is emptiness. Since emptiness is something pervading all sentient beings, it follows that all those beings have the essence of buddhahood. The second reason, the universal essence, suchness, is without differentiation, means that whether it be in terms of good and bad, great and small, or higher and lower, there is no difference between the universal essence in buddhas and the universal essence in sentient beings. Thus sentient beings possess the buddha essence. That every sentient being has the potential to become a buddha is explained through the five ways in which they stand in respect to enlightenment potential. These are outlined in the following synopsis:

Those with enlightenment potential can be summed up as belonging to five groups: those with severed potential, undetermined potential, śrāvaka potential, pratyekabuddha potential, and those with the Mahayana potential.

Those with severed potential are characterized by six traits, such as lacking a sense of shame in public, having no dignity in private, lacking compassion, and so forth. The great master Asaṅga has said of them:

Though seeing what is wrong with samsara, they are not in the least put off by it.

Though hearing about the qualities of enlightened beings, they feel not the slightest faith in them.

Without conscience and shame, and devoid of even a little compassion, they feel not the slightest regret for the unwholesome acts in which they fully indulge.

Through compounding those six shortcomings, they are far from ready for enlightenment.¹⁴

It also says in the Ornament of Mahayana Sutras:

It is certain that some are solely engaged in what is harmful.

Some are constantly destroying whatever is good.

Others lack those virtues conducive to liberation.

They are devoid of anything that could in any way be wholesome. MSA 4:11

Although those who have the above traits are said to have severed potential, this refers to their having to pass an exceedingly long time in samsara and does not mean that they have definitively cut off any chance of achieving enlightenment. Provided that they make the effort, they can attain enlightenment. It says of this in the White Lotus of Great Compassion Sutra:

Ānanda! Were someone lacking the fortunate circumstances for nirvana merely to cast a flower up in the sky, visualizing the Buddha, then that person thereby possesses the fruit of nirvana. I declare that person to be one who will reach nirvana and who will penetrate to its furthest end.¹⁵

The lot of those with undetermined potential depends on the circumstances. Those who train under śrāvaka spiritual teachers, become involved with śrāvakas, or come across śrāvaka scriptures will place their trust in the śrāvaka way and, having entered that way, will actually become śrāvakas themselves. Likewise, those who encounter pratyekabuddha or Mahayana circumstances will embrace the pratyekabuddha or Mahayana ways.

Those with śrāvaka potential fear samsara, believe in nirvana, and have limited compassion. The scriptures say:

Seeing the sufferings of samsara, they are afraid;

they manifestly aspire for nirvana;

they are not interested in working for the welfare of sentient beings:

those who bear these three characteristics have the śrāvaka potential.¹⁶