The Sutra of Complete Enlightenment brings the feeling of elegance and beauty. This paper aims to investigate the Sutra’s artistry manifested in teaching to discern the nature and style of its artistic value in its educational application, i.e. the narrative presented and the aesthetics conveyed in the Sutra to scrutinize the narrative framework and theorization techniques, the guidance model, and pragmatics in terms of review and appreciation. In term of five aspects: structure, ontology, realm, cultivation skills, and literary aesthetics, this paper discerns the artistic elements in the Sutra. In addition, the literary theory of The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons is applied to analyze the literary aesthetics of the Sutra. The structural, balanced, and “ontology-realm-cultivation” active system aesthetics of the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment is observed. Given that “perfect enlightenment” is the “cultivation of perfection”, such a way of cultivation is the process to achieve the Buddhist being (ontology), which is original. In addition, the Sutra externalizes four progressive realms, presenting a sequential and proactive image. “Cultivation” is like an “operational manual”, guiding practitioners to progressively achieve the practice whereby fully abstract spiritual activities are translated into representational verbal expressions in which the vivid and lively vitality is manifested through the flow of the narrative. In addition to a fusion of sense and sensibility, the aesthetics of literary works is revealed through the stream of consciousness mingled with rhetoric and dualist antithesis and Gatha chant, creating a “solemn and graceful” reading experience. In terms of these five aspects, the literary theories in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons can help appreciate and discern the artistry of the Sutra of Complete Enlightenment.
