The Excellences of the Transcendences

A spiritual genius gives with such compassion that, meeting a supplicant, she is willing even to offer her life — and gives without desire for reward or any clinging to outcome. Such giving lifts beings into deeper awakenings; when generosity is suffused with nonconceptual wisdom it becomes inexhaustible in the world.

She takes up a triple morality of restraint and exertion without craving for heavenly reward; even on the highest plane she generates no attachment. Morality grounded in insight uplifts all beings and, when integrated with wisdom, never runs dry.

She endures great austerities and injuries not from fear or self-interest but from compassion; such unexcelled tolerance elevates beings, and tolerance coupled with insight is inexhaustible.

Her effort is incomparable — both defensive and progressive — aimed at slaying the army of addictions in herself and others. Effort informed by wisdom produces boundless benefit.

Her contemplation is perfected through many concentrations; sustained by the bliss of deep absorption, she willingly remains in humble lives for the sake of beings. Contemplation united with wisdom becomes an inexhaustible spring of benefit.

Her wisdom knows all that can be known, seeing each thing in its suchness without clinging even to cessation; wisdom married to compassion serves beings without forsaking them and is similarly inexhaustible.

Taken together, these qualities show four universal excellences: magnificence, freedom from exploitiveness, greatness of aim (the power to accomplish the large goals of beings), and inexhaustibility. Each transcendence displays these excellences when practiced from compassion and insight.

Generosity Illustrated

A petitioner gains pleasure from receiving; the spiritual genius surpasses that pleasure — she delights more in encountering and satisfying the petitioner than the petitioner delights in receiving. She freely offers life, wealth, and whatever belongs to others and rejoices in that refusal of ownership. Because she has no self-concern and sees others as not-other, she cannot be driven to false speech, harsh speech, or idle chatter; her speech is governed by compassion and the aim to educate and relieve suffering.

Generosity is supreme in embodiment (the generous being herself), in substance (the deepest forms of giving: life, protection, teaching), in process (compassion as the method), in dedication (the aim for great enlightenment), in cause (habits developed by repeated giving), in intuition (nonconceptual purity that dissolves giver, gift, and recipient), in field (from petitioner to virtuous recipients), and in reliance (conviction, conscientious attitudes, and meditative concentration). In its fullness, generosity makes the giver the richest of beings, even if she has given away all possessions.

The Supremacy of Each Transcendence

Morality, tolerance, effort, contemplation, and wisdom are likewise supreme when considered in those same dimensions: embodiment, substance, process, dedication, cause, intuition, field, and reliance. The supreme substance of morality is steadfast vow; for tolerance, the readiness to sacrifice one’s life; for effort, conquering resistances; for contemplation, perfected concentrations; for wisdom, realization of suchness. Each transcendence’s field and reliance mirror generosity’s pattern, shaped by the compassionate aim to develop beings.

How Effort Functions

Effort is the principal virtue: later attainments rely upon it. It brings immediate well-being, mundane success, and transcendental accomplishment. Effort has many faces — it increases or decreases virtue, it governs liberation, it remedies resistance, it enters into reality (it actualizes the stages of insight), it transforms people, and it pursues a great aim: the welfare of self and others.

Effort’s types include protective armor-effort, engaged application, intrepid energy, unshakeable perseverance, and insatiable striving. Its quality depends on embodiment: when motivation and intellect are small (individual vehicles) effort is limited; when they are vast (the universal aim) effort is outstanding.

Effort remedies four obstructions that would block giving and the other transcendences: being overcome by wealth, by addictive desire, by weariness, or by complacent success. The enterprising one is not conquered by these — she does not let wealth enslave her, addictions control her, weariness stop her, nor success lull her into self-satisfaction.

How Contemplation and Wisdom Excel

Contemplation yields inner stability, is established by mindfulness and effort, and is the source of immunity from harm. It grants mastery of superknowledges and sublime stations; for the compassionate it is not selfish or perishable but irrepressible and liberative.

Wisdom is true discernment born of concentration; it frees from addictions and enables a life devoted to insight and to skillful teaching. It is supreme among practices and appears in degrees — mundane, slightly transcendent, and greatly transcendent — each deeper than the last.

The Heart of the Matter

A spiritual genius’s virtues are not mere rules to be followed; they are luminous practices rooted in compassion and sharpened by insight. They transform the giver into the very field of benefit: suffering becomes fuel, relinquishment becomes wealth, endurance becomes strength, effort becomes armor, concentrated mind becomes mastery, and discernment becomes liberation. In this transformation, every transcendence becomes inexhaustible — a living source for the awakening of all beings.