Six Aspirations Taught by the Buddha: Noble Dharani of the Six Gates
The Sanskrit word dharani comes from the root dhr, meaning "to hold" or "to support", a beneficial state, holding the teachings in memory, holding back harmful forces, and keeping the door to liberation open.
Dharanis are often compared to mantras, and the two overlap considerably. But there are distinctions. Mantras tend to be shorter, seed-syllable-based formulas associated with specific deities or energies. Dharanis are more often extended formulas, sometimes in Sanskrit, sometimes in transliterated form, that carry the condensed essence of an entire teaching or a vast field of merit. Reciting a dharani is understood, in Buddhist tradition, to activate the accumulated spiritual power of countless buddhas and bodhisattvas who have upheld and transmitted that same formula across time.
The Six Gates in Buddhism:
The term "six gates" (sanmukhi in Sanskrit, literally "six-mouthed" or "six-faced") refers to six distinct orientations or "openings" through which a practitioner enters a transformed relationship with their experience of samsara.
In the context of this sutra, the six gates are not doorways into a mandala palace or six chakra centers; they are six aspirational vows that together cover the entirety of ordinary human experience:
- The Gate of Suffering: our experience of pain, loss, and difficulty
- The Gate of Happiness: our experience of joy, pleasure, and success
- The Gate of Misdeeds: our own harmful actions, past and present
- The Gate of Demonic Actions: the harmful actions of others directed at us
- The Gate of Virtue: our accumulated merit and wholesome qualities
- The Gate of Liberation: the ultimate fruit of spiritual practice
The Full Dharani Text in English
"Children of a noble family, may you uphold The Dhārani of the Six Gates for the benefit and well-being of the whole world.
"As I pass through life after life in saṃsāra, whatever suffering I experience, may it not be characterized by my not understanding that it is the same for all beings.
"Whatever happiness due to worldly success I experience, may I make use of it in common with all beings to bring about thorough understanding.
"Whatever misdeeds and non-virtuous actions I have done, may I not fail to confess each one of them through unsurpassed confession.
"Whatever demonic actions have been done to me, may I not fail to thoroughly understand them through unsurpassed thorough understanding.
"Whatever roots of virtue I may have, both mundane and supramundane, endowed with the perfections, may they become the fruit of unsurpassable wisdom for all beings."
The Six Aspirations Taught by the Buddha: Each Gate Explained
From a traditional Buddhist perspective, the dharani was not an invention, but a timeless spiritual truth that the Buddha realized upon his enlightenment and subsequently taught to his disciples. The text was preserved as physical manuscripts written in ancient Sanskrit before being meticulously located, collected, and translated into other world languages over the centuries.
1. The Gate of Suffering:
The first aspiration encourages us to acknowledge that our pain is interconnected with all beings, fostering a sense of shared loneliness and universal loss. This recognition lays the groundwork for compassion (karuna), which is not merely an abstract idea but an experiential understanding amidst our own suffering. Citing the teachings of Tibetan teacher Shantideva, it highlights that the distinction between a bodhisattva and an ordinary person lies not in the presence of suffering, but in how one relates to it, where a bodhisattva transforms personal pain into a deeper awareness of collective suffering.
2. The Gate of Happiness:
This shift requires recognizing that one's own happiness can multiply by benefiting others rather than diminishing. The concept of "thorough understanding" (sambuddhi) emphasizes the importance of using personal joy not merely for self-enrichment, but to foster wisdom and support others in doing the same. The practices of rejoicing (mudita) and generosity (dana) are highlighted, advocating for the sharing of joy and the resources of one's good fortune. Finally, the text encourages consciously dedicating personal successes and happiness to promote collective understanding and gradually retraining the mind from its instinct to hoard.
3. The Gate of Misdeeds:
The third gate in Buddhism focuses on the burdens of negative karma from past harmful actions, which obstruct liberation. These obscurations require active purification, primarily through confession (desana), recognized as one of the four key elements of this process. The thoroughness of confession is emphasized, where "each one of them" (ekaikasaḥ) suggests that all harmful actions, regardless of their significance, must be acknowledged without self-condemnation, fostering a clear-eyed recognition of wrongdoing. The term "unsurpassed" (anuttara) signifies a bodhisattva's dedication to authentic and heartfelt acknowledgment rather than mere mechanical confession. Practically, this gate encourages individuals to regularly review their actions, recognize causes of harm, and consciously release these burdens through formal practices or personal reflection, such as the Thirty-Five Buddhas confession prayer or daily self-assessment.
4. The Gate of Demonic Actions:
This fourth gate is notable for its psychological complexity, contrasting with the prior gate that deals with harm caused by oneself. This gate focuses on the harm experienced from external sources, labeled as "demonic" (mara) in Buddhism, representing both internal and external forces, such as craving, aversion, ego-clinging, and mortality, that obstruct liberation. The harm we endure, including deception or exploitation, can lead to negative emotions like resentment and fear, deepening our entanglement in samsara. The goal here is to experience clear seeing (prajna) and to cultivate a clear understanding of the harm without the influence of reactive emotions.
5. The Gate of Virtue:
The fifth gate in Buddhism focuses on virtue, emphasizing the importance of accumulating positive karma, merit, and beneficial qualities during a practitioner's spiritual journey. The concept of "roots of virtue" (kusalamula) encompasses essential positive traits nurtured through practice, which include generosity, ethics, patience, effort, meditation, and wisdom. These traits are categorized into "mundane" qualities, characteristics of an ethical individual, and "supramundane" qualities, which are transcendent attributes sought on the path to liberation, such as the six or ten paramitas of the bodhisattva path. The goal is to align every act of kindness, meditation, ethical conduct, and wisdom towards the greater good, reflecting the bodhisattva's commitment to achieving "unsurpassable wisdom for all beings."
6. The Gate of Liberation:
The sixth gate is integral to the structure of the dharani, explicitly outlined in the Buddha's final instruction that maintaining these six aspirations leads to "swiftly and fully" achieving unsurpassed perfect buddhahood (anuttara samyaksaṃbodhi). This sixth gate embodies the culmination of the preceding five aspirations, which encompass all aspects of ordinary life, suffering, joy, wrongdoing, harm, and virtue, redirecting them towards the bodhisattva's ultimate goal. It resonates with the Bodhicitta vow, the commitment to attain enlightenment for the benefit of all beings, central to Mahayana practice. By embracing all six gates, practitioners reaffirm this vow comprehensively, ensuring every aspect of their experience is included.
Benefits of Reciting the Noble Dharani of the Six Gates
The Buddha himself specifies the benefits of this practice with unusual precision, offering three distinct fruits that arise from sincere daily recitation.
Purification of Karmic Obscurations
The purification of karmic obscurations (karmavarana) is the primary benefit discussed in Buddhist teachings, where these accumulations from past non-virtuous actions hinder the mind's natural clarity and obstruct true reality perception. They lead to confusion, reactivity, meditation difficulties, and daily life challenges. The Six Gates Dharani addresses these obscurations through several simultaneous mechanisms: gate three focuses on confessing past harmful actions, gate five emphasizes merit-building to counter negativity, and the overall orientation of the gates fosters a shift in habitual patterns to reduce future obscurations.
Remembering Past Lives Up to Seven Lifetimes
Another significant benefit following this purification is the ability to recall previous lives, specifically up to seven, as noted by the Buddha. This capacity, understood as one of the classical abhijna or higher knowledges, emerges naturally when karmic veils diminish, offering profound insights into karma, interdependence, and practicing urgency.
Swift Awakening to Unsurpassed Perfect Buddhahood
Finally, the ultimate aspiration for practitioners is to achieve "unsurpassed perfect buddhahood" (anuttara samyaksambodhi). While this does not guarantee immediate enlightenment, the use of "swiftly" indicates an acceleration in the path toward complete enlightenment, which is not only for oneself but also serves the benefit of all sentient beings. The dharani's role in Mahayana practice is to generate extensive merit and purify significant obscurations efficiently.
Conclusion: A Short Text with Boundless Depth
The Noble Dharani of the Six Gates is, in one sense, a very small text. It can be read in under two minutes. It was probably transmitted on a single manuscript sheet at Dunhuang. It fits comfortably in the memory after a handful of recitations.
And yet it reaches into every corner of human experience and points, from every corner, in the same direction: toward the recognition of interdependence, the purification of harm, the dedication of goodness, and the aspiration, vast, patient, and inexhaustible, for the liberation of all beings.
The Buddha's instruction was simple: uphold it. Recite it in the morning, recite it in the evening, and let its six orientations gradually do their work on the mind's habitual patterns. Not as a magic formula, but as a living aspiration, renewed three times each day and three times each night, that slowly, steadily, transforms the practitioner's relationship to the whole of their life.
"May whatever roots of virtue I may have, both mundane and supramundane, endowed with the perfections, become the fruit of unsurpassable wisdom for all beings."
Thus ends the Noble Dharani of the Six Gates. May all beings benefit.
