495. How should one understand these one hundred merits? The Vydkhyd furnishes three
explanations.
a. Fifty volitions (cetana) are produced when the Bodhisattva produces an act of attention
having the Buddha for its object (buddhdlambana); fifty other volitions when the Bodhisattva
thinks: "May I too become a Buddha! (abam apittham sydm)."
b. The Bodhisattva has thoughts of compassion (karvndcitta) with regard to the forty-eight
parts of the world (twenty places in Kamadhatu, sixteen in Rupadhatu, four in Arupyadhatu, plus
the eight cold hells): the same number of volitions are associated with these thoughts: plus a
forty-ninth volition which has the Buddha for its object: "In the manner in which he liberates
beings"; plus a fiftieth thought: "May I liberate them in the same way!" By repeating these fifty
volitions, the Bodhisattva has one hundred merits.
c The renouncing of killing is undertaken in a fivefold mode (see below iv. 123a-b): purification
of the principal action; purification of the preparatory and the consecutive actions (sdmantaka,
iv.68a); vitarkanupaghdta, the renouncing is not troubled by the [three bad] vitarkas; smrtyanuparigfhatatva,
the renouncing is maintained by the memory of the Buddha, the Dharma and the
Sangha; and nkvanaparmarmtatra, the merit of the renouncing is applied to the obtaining of
Nirvana. These make five volitions when the Bodhisattva renounces killing, fifty volitions for all of
the ten renouncings, and one hundred volitions by repeating the first fifty volitions (Vyakhya)