Opening Talk in the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa Series
1. The Problem of Sameness
Sangharakshita begins by pointing out how spiritual life can feel stale—the repetition of practices like meditation, precepts, and pujas can lead to a sense of dullness. He challenges this flatness, reminding us that:
“Each moment is unique and unrepeatable.”
Yet, we forget this. We stop seeing the magic in our own experience.
2. Why Study the Vimalakīrti Nirdeśa?
The sūtra is an opportunity to plunge into another dimension—into myth, paradox, poetry, and freedom. It offers not a systematic doctrine, but a dramatic expression of spiritual insight through imagination and symbol.
3. What is the Mahāyāna?
The Mahāyāna (“Great Vehicle”) encourages boundless spiritual aspiration. It calls all beings to become Bodhisattvas:
- Not for their own liberation alone
- But for the sake of all sentient beings
This is a shift from individual liberation to universal awakening.
4. The Inconceivable Emancipation (Acintyavimokṣa)
The title of the series comes from one of the alternative names of the text. “Inconceivable” means:
- Beyond thought and speech
- Not graspable by conceptual mind
Sangharakshita explains that all true emancipation is inconceivable, because:
“We don’t even know what bondage we’re in until we’re free.”
Thus, we are being invited to commit ourselves to the unknown—to liberation that cannot be mapped in advance.
5. Reality Is Not What We Think
The Mahāyāna sees phenomena (dharmas) as:
- Neither truly existing nor non-existing
- Neither appearing nor disappearing
- Inherently empty of essence, and therefore inconceivable
This is not nihilism, but a radical freedom from rigid perception.
6. Magic and the Dharma
Sangharakshita explains the Buddhist use of magic not as trickery, but as demonstration:
The Buddhas and Bodhisattvas demonstrate Dharma not through words, but through action that breaks our conceptual expectations.
Magic, in this view, becomes a symbol of how appearances arise through mind—they are not absolutely real, yet not illusions either. Like a magician’s conjured elephant, they are conditionally real but not ultimately existent.
7. Vimalakīrti: A Unique Mahāyāna Text
- Unlike most sūtras, this is not primarily the Buddha’s teaching—it’s the teaching of Vimalakīrti, a lay bodhisattva.
- It combines myth, philosophy, poetry, and paradox to shake us loose from fixed views.
- It demonstrates the Dharma through imagery, silence, reversal, and mythic action.
8. Preview of the Series
The talk ends with a thematic outline of the coming weeks:
- Building the Buddha Land
- Being All Things to All Men
- The Transcendental Critique of Religion
- History vs Myth
- The Way of Nonduality
- The Mystery of Human Communication
- The Four Great Reliances
Each explores a different facet of this inconceivable liberation.
✦ Core Message
❝ The sūtra is not a map—it’s a doorway.
We must enter not with certainty, but with wonder. ❞