Kukai on the Diversity of Living Beings (Sections from the Treatise on Ten Stages of Mind of Secret Mandala)
Yearbook Japan December 15, 2025 DOI: 10.55105/2687-1440-2025-54-290-322 via Semantic Scholar
Summary
AI-generated from the abstractKukai's Treatise on Ten Stages of Mind of Secret Mandala describes the lowest stage of spiritual progress, where beings lack right seeing and inclination toward the wholesome. This scroll focuses on cosmological issues, detailing classes of living beings whose way of life is based on unwholesome actions, resulting in heightened suffering.
Study at a glance
| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Keywords | Philosophy |
| Key finding | The lowest stage of spiritual progress is characterized by an absence of right seeing and inclination toward the wholesome, leading to heightened suffering among beings whose lives are based on unwholesome actions. |
Abstract
In the second scroll of his Treatise on Ten Stages of Mind of Secret Mandala , a Buddhist philosophy compendium, Kukai discusses the lowest level of spiritual progress highlighting the absence of right seeing and inclination towards the wholesome among the beings of this stage as the dominating trait of their mind. The scroll is largely concerned with the cosmological issues including the various classes of living beings whose way of life is based on unwholesome courses of action, as a result of which the sense of suffering is particularly heightened.