supreme concentration of great compassion, you will never be
without transcendent wisdom, you will bring sentient beings to full
maturity, and all your hopes will be perfectly fulfilled.
And the Great Omniscient One says: As a result, unbiased pure perception arises, One is trained in loving kindness, compassion, and bodhichitta, Experiences and realization naturally grow, One acts on an infinite scale for others’ good And accomplishes all their wishes in accordance with the Dharma. And so on—all this is widely dealt with in numerous texts. This completes a brief account of how to follow the spiritual friend, who is the root of the path. a. A good king protects his subjects from difficulties such as being unfairly judged and punished; they go to him to be pardoned. b. The two accumulations of merit and wisdom. c. I.e., the inexhaustible qualities of Buddhahood. d. I.e., the absolute body and the body of perfect enjoyment are present in the body of manifestation. e. The Close Sons, the Buddha’s eight closest Bodhisattva disciples. See glossary, Eight Great Close Sons. f. Tib. gsang ba’i bdag po, another name for Vajrapani. g. See “The Five Crimes with Immediate Retribution.” h. In traditional society, a newly wed bride takes pains not to vex her husband or her mother-inlaw. i. “Opening the Eyes” (Tib. spyan ’byed) refers to painting a statue of the Buddha or a deity, of which the most important part is painting the eyes. The person who does this is often paid a fee for his work. j. Tib. bshags pa, see glossary, parting, for an explanation of this term, formerly translated as “confession.”