To Light a Thousand Lamps - The Theosophical Society

The Two Paths / 131
‘‘seven classes of minds’’ are delineated, the sixth being that
of the pratyeka buddha, who seeks no teacher and lives
alone ‘‘like the solitary horn of the rhinoceros.’’* His wisdom
is only such as can be contained within ‘‘a shallow
brook on his own property,’’ whereas the wisdom of a perfect
or complete buddha is like that of ‘‘the mighty ocean.’’
Another scripture calls the knowledge of a pratyeka buddha
‘‘limited,’’ even though he is said to know everything
about his previous births and deaths. In contrast, the complete
or perfect buddhas or buddhas of compassion are omniscient,
because when required they have command over
the total resources of knowledge and can focus directly on
‘‘any point which they choose to remember, throughout
many times ten million world-cycles,’’ and thus discern
instantaneously the exact truth of any situation, person,
or event.†
Tsong-kha-pa of 14th-century Tibet was a transmitter of
Buddha-wisdom. He spoke of pratyeka buddhas as Solitary
Realizers of ‘‘middling’’ capacity: even though they persevere
in their purpose, their merit and wisdom are limited
because their e¤orts are ‘‘for their own sake alone’’ in
contradistinction to the bodhisattva-become-buddha who
bears ‘‘the altruistic mind of enlightenment at the very
beginning.’’‡
The amṛita-yāna, ‘‘deathless path,’’ although slower and
*Ibid., p. 158.
†Visuddhi Magga (Way of Purity) by Buddhaghosa; cited in World
of the Buddha: A Reader, ed. Lucien Stryk, p. 159 et seq.
‡Cf. Compassion in Tibetan Buddhism by Tsong-ka-pa, ed. and
trans. Je¤rey Hopkins, pp. 102‒9.