Thirty-seven factors of enlightenment

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The thirty-seven factors of enlightenment (Skt. saptatriṁśa-bodhipakṣa-dharma; Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་ཀྱི་ཕྱོགས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་སུམ་ཅུ་རྩ་བདུན་, Wyl. byang chub kyi phyogs kyi chos sum cu rtsa bdun) are thirty-seven practices undertaken and perfected at specific stages of the first four of the five paths and present thereafter as qualities of enlightenment.

They are as follows:

  1. the body (Skt. kāya-smṛtyupasthāna; Tib. ལུས་དྲན་པ་ཉེ་བར་བཞག་, Wyl. lus dran pa nye bar bzhag)
  2. feelings (Skt. vedanā-smṛtyupasthāna; Tib. ཚོར་བ་དྲན་པ་ཉེ་བར་བཞག་, Wyl. tshor dran pa nye bar bzhag)
  3. the mind (Skt. citta-smṛtyupasthāna; Tib. སེམས་དྲན་པ་ཉེ་བར་བཞག་, Wyl. sems dran pa nye bar bzhag)
  4. phenomena (Skt. dharma-smṛtyupasthāna; Tib. ཆོས་དྲན་པ་ཉེ་བར་བཞག་, Wyl. chos dran pa nye bar bzhag)
  • 5-8: Four genuine restraints (Skt. catvāri samyakprahāṇāni; Tib. ཡང་དག་པར་སྤོང་བ་བཞི་, yangdakpar pongwa shyi, Wyl. yang dag par spong ba bzhi)
  1. to avoid generating any negative states that have not arisen (Tib. མི་དགེ་བ་མ་སྐྱེས་པ་མི་བསྐྱེད་པ་, Wyl. mi dge ba ma skyes pa mi bskyed pa)
  2. to abandon negative states that have arisen (Tib. མི་དགེ་བ་སྐྱེས་པ་སྤོངས་བ་, Wyl. mi dge ba skyes pa spongs ba)
  3. to generate virtuous states that have not arisen (Tib. དགེ་བ་མ་སྐྱེས་པ་བསྐྱེད་པ་, Wyl. dge ba ma skyes pa bskyed pa)
  4. not to allow any virtuous states that have arisen to deteriorate and to develop them further (Tib. དགེ་བ་སྐྱེས་པ་སྤེལ་བ་, Wyl. dge ba skyes pa spel ba)

Alternative Translations

  • thirty-seven wings of enlightenment (Dharma Publishing)

Further Reading

  • Kangyur Rinpoche, Treasury of Precious Qualities (Boston & London: Shambhala, 2001), 'Appendix 6'.