The Transcendences

The Path’s Architecture
To understand the transcendences, one must grasp their number, their nature, their order, their meanings, the excellence of their practice, their internal analysis, the summary of their function, their resistances, their excellences, and the ways they mutually determine one another. These elements reveal the full pattern of transcendental activity.

1. Six Transcendences, Six Forms of Excellence

Four transcendences produce four exalted states:

• Perfect wealth through generosity,
• Perfect body through morality,
• Perfect society through tolerance,
• Perfect accomplishment through effort.

The next two complete the structure:

• Freedom from addictions through contemplation,
• Unerringness in every duty through transcendent wisdom.

Thus the six transcendences manifest as:
abundance, purity, harmonious community, unstoppable effort, freedom, and flawless discernment.

2. Serving Others and Fulfilling Oneself Through the Sixfold Path

A spiritual genius who lives solely for the welfare of beings acts with:

• Detachment,
• Non-aggression,
• Tolerance of harm.

These arise from the first three transcendences.

And she fulfills her own inner aims by:

• Basic energetic power,
• Mental stability,
• Liberation through wisdom.

Effort stabilizes; contemplation steadies; wisdom frees.
Thus the transcendences serve both others’ aims and one’s own awakening.

3. Making the Aims of Others One’s Own

Through the six transcendences, the spiritual genius allows the aims of others to become her very own, because:

• Giving never diminishes her,
• Morality keeps her harmless,
• Tolerance makes her unshakeable,
• Effort keeps her tireless,
• Contemplation grants a radiant charisma that protects and inspires,
• Wisdom grants eloquence that cuts through confusion.

This is why her life becomes exclusively altruistic:
every duty that belongs to another becomes her duty,
and through this boundless identification she approaches great enlightenment.

4. How the Transcendences Contain the Whole Path

The entire supreme vehicle is condensed in these qualities:

• Disinterest in possessions,
• Reverence for vows,
• Unwearied patience and effort,
• Nonconceptual meditative clarity arising from serenity and insight.

All stages of the path are contained here: ethics, stability, wisdom, and the great heart that carries all beings.

5. The Six Liberative Arts

Each transcendence functions as a distinct liberative art:

• Generosity trains non-attachment,
• Morality guards against distraction,
• Tolerance trains non-forsaking of beings,
• Effort produces growth rather than stagnation,
• Contemplation purifies addictive obscurations,
• Wisdom purifies cognitive obscurations.

Thus the transcendences express the complete art of liberation in six gestures of mind and behavior.

6. Their Place Within the Three Great Educations

The awakened ones show that the six transcendences unfold according to the three great educations:

• The education of morality includes generosity, morality, and tolerance.
• The education of mind is fulfilled through contemplation.
• The education of wisdom is perfected through the transcendence of wisdom.
• And effort accompanies all of them, binding the entire discipline into one path.

Thus the transcendences reveal their unity and their interdependence:
ethics, meditation, and wisdom — each carried by unwavering effort — form the complete ascent.