The Surangama Sutra
Page 11
The Sutra says that the members of the assembly had renounced their fundamental minds and had relied only on their deluded minds, their conscious minds, their minds that make distinctions. They hadn’t understood external states; they’d taken their distinction-making minds to be true and real. They had engaged in confused activities at the gates of the six faculties and hadn’t the least bit of skill with regard to their true natures.... You need to understand that the mountains, the rivers, the vegetation, and all the rest of the myriad appearances on this earth are the Dharma-body of the Buddhas, which neither comes into being nor perishes.... You must recognize the pure, luminous essential nature of the everlasting true mind, and your mad distinction-making mind must cease. It is said, “The ceasing of the mad mind is full awakening.” The mad mind’s coming to a stop is the manifestation of our awakened mind. Because the mad mind exists and has not ceased, the awakened mind cannot come forth. The mad mind covers it over. The aim of this passage, and every other passage of the Sutra without exception, is to reveal everyone’s true mind. (II, 29–30)
When Ānanda and the great assembly had heard the Buddha’s teachings, their bodies and their minds were serene. They realized that since time without beginning they had strayed from the fundamental, true mind. Instead, they had been mistaken about the conditioned objects of perception and had made distinctions about what are in fact nothing but shadowy mental events.5 Now they all had awakened, and each was like a lost infant suddenly reunited with its beloved mother. Putting their palms together, they bowed to the Buddha. They wished to hear the Thus-Come One reveal the contrasting qualities of body and mind — what is true and what is false about them, what is real and what is insubstantial, what comes into being and then ceases to be, and what neither comes into being nor perishes.
Visual Awareness Does Not Perish
Then King Prasenajit stood up and said to the Buddha, “Before I was instructed by the Buddha, I met Kātyāyana and Vairāṭiputra.6 Both of them said that after this body dies, we cease to exist and become nothing. That very nothingness itself is what they called nirvana. Now, though I have met the Buddha, I still have doubts that make me cautious. How can I come to realize the true and fundamental mind that neither comes into being nor perishes? All in this great assembly who have outflows wish to hear the answer.”
The Buddha said to the king, “May I ask, is your body as indestructible as vajra,7 or is it subject to decay?”
“World-Honored One, this body of mine will keep on changing till in the end it will perish.”
The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, you have not perished yet. How is it that you know you will perish?”
“World-Honored One, my body is impermanent and subject to decay, although it has not perished yet. But now, upon reflection, I can see that each one of my thoughts just fades away, followed by a new thought which also does not last, like fire turning into ash, constantly dying away, forever perishing. By this I am convinced that my body, too, must perish.”
The Buddha said, “So it is. Your Majesty, you are in your declining years. How do you look now, compared to when you were a boy?”
“World-Honored One, when I was a child, my skin was fresh and smooth, and I was full of vital energy when in my prime. But now in my later years, as old age presses upon me, my body has withered and is weary. My vital spirits are dulled, my hair is white, my skin is wrinkled. Not much time remains for me. How can all this compare to the prime of life?”
The king has reached a point where his body no longer helps him out. His body is oppressive and nags at him to move somewhere else. It will soon be unlivable. (II, 36)
The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, your body’s appearance cannot have deteriorated suddenly.”
The king replied, “World-Honored One, the change has in fact been so subtle that I have hardly been aware of it. I’ve reached this point only gradually through the passing of the years. Thus when I was in my twenties, I was still young, but I already looked older than I did when I was ten. My thirties marked a further decline from my twenties, and now, at two years past sixty, I look back on my fifties as a time of strength and health.
“World-Honored One, as I observe these subtle transformations, I realize now that the changes wrought by this descent toward death are evident not only from decade to decade; they can also be discerned in smaller increments. Considering more closely, one can see that changes happen year by year as well as by the decade. In fact, how could they happen merely year by year? Such changes happen every month. And how could they occur from month to month only? These changes happen day by day. And if one contemplates this deeply, one can see that there is ceaseless change from moment to moment,8 in each successive thought. Thus I can know that my body will keep on changing till it perishes.”
The Buddha said to the king, “Observing these changes — these never-ceasing transformations — you know that you must perish. But do you also know that when you perish, something in you does not perish with you?”
Putting his palms together, King Prasenajit replied to the Buddha, “Indeed I do not know.”
The Buddha said, “I now will reveal to you what it is that does not come into being and does not perish. Your Majesty, when you first saw the River Ganges, how old were you?”
The king replied, “I was three when my beloved mother took me to pay respects to the goddess Jīva.9 When we went past a river, I knew that it was the Ganges.”
The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, you said that when you were in your twenties, you had already aged compared to when you were ten. Year after year, month after month, day after day, in each successive thought there have been changes till you have reached your sixties. Consider, though: when you were three years old, you saw the river; ten years later, when you were thirteen, what was the river like?”
The king replied, “It looked the same when I was thirteen as it did when I was three, and even now, when I am sixty-two, it is still the same.”
The Buddha said, “Now you are mournful that your hair is white and your face is wrinkled. Your face is certainly more wrinkled than it was when you were in your youth. But when you look at the Ganges, is your visual awareness any different from your visual awareness as it was when you saw the river in your boyhood?”
The king replied, “No different, World-Honored One.”
The Buddha said, “Your Majesty, your face is wrinkled, but the essential nature of your visual awareness itself has not wrinkled. What wrinkles is subject to change. What does not wrinkle does not change. What changes will perish. But what does not change neither comes into being nor perishes. Then how could it be affected by your being born and dying? So you have no need to be concerned with what such people as Maskari Gośālīputra10 say: that when this body dies, you cease to exist.”
The king believed the words that he had heard, and he understood that when we leave this body, we go on to another. He and all the others in the great assembly were elated at having gained a new understanding.
The True Nature of Visual Awareness Is Not Lost
Ānanda then stood up, bowed to the Buddha, knelt, put his palms together, and said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One, if our visual awareness and our awareness of sounds, too, indeed do not come into being and do not perish, why then did the World-Honored One say that we have lost track of our true nature and our actions are deluded — as if we were upside-down and not right-side-up? I hope the World-Honored One, out of kindness, will clear away the dust of our delusions.”
At that time, bending his golden-hued arm so that his wheel-lined fingers pointed downward, the Thus-Come One said to Ānanda, “Here you see my hand as it forms a mudra.11 Is it upside-down, or is it upright?”
Ānanda said, “Ordinary people would take it to be upside-down. I myself do not know what may be called upright and what is upside-down.”
The Buddha said to Ānanda, “If ordinary people would take this to be upside-down, what then would people consider to be upright?”
Then the Buddha raised his arm and said to Ānanda: “Ordinary people are deluded if they suppose that reversing the way my arm is pointing means that my arm itself has changed. And if, in the same way, we compare the bodies of ordinary people to the pure Dharma-body of the Thus-Come One,12 we might describe the Dharma-body of the Thus-Come One as endowed with ‘right and all-encompassing knowledge,’13 and ordinary people’s bodies as upside-down. But consider more carefully this comparison of the Buddha’s body with your bodies, which are said to be upside-down. Where, exactly, might the characteristic ‘upside-down’ be found?”
At this point Ānanda and the others in the great assembly were dazed. They stared unblinking at the Buddha. They did not know where, in their minds and bodies, the characteristic “upside-down” might be.
The Buddha out of kindness took pity on Ānanda and on everyone else assembled there. He spoke to them in a voice that swept over them like the ocean-tide. “All you good people! I have often said that all phenomena with physical form,14 all phenomena of mind,15 the conditions under which they arise, as well as the phenomena that interact with the mind16 and all other conditioned phenomena, are mere manifestations of true mind. Your bodies and your minds appear within the wondrous light of the true essence of that wondrous mind. How is it that you all have lost track of the wondrous nature of the fundamental, marvelously perfect, wondrously understanding and resplendent mind, so that your understanding of it is confused?
Where do all phenomena come from — the mountains, the rivers, the vegetation, and all the myriad things on this earth? They come forth from minds; all the myriad things are contained within the mind. It is not that these things contain the mind but rather the opposite: absolutely everything in the environment, both natural and man-made, is contained in a single thought of the mind, and all are produced from the mind. If you recognize your original true mind, all these things cease to exist.... Then is there yet another mind above and beyond the conscious mind? No, but because people don’t know how to use the wondrous mind, they think their conscious mind is their mind. Actually, they are mistaking a burglar for their own child, and for that reason they become confused.... They think that they understand clearly about the wondrous nature of the fundamental, perfect, wondrously understanding mind, but they don’t understand. They don’t realize that they have a perfect, wondrously luminous mind, which is the precious light of our wondrous nature. They think the conscious mind they are aware of is their mind. But actually it is only confusion within confusion. (II, 51–2)
“Out of darkness, a mental void appears, and this dark void condenses to create a subtle object of mind.17 What characterizes this distorting mental activity is that it leads to the coming into being of the embryonic body. An internal confluence of causes distorts this body and directs its attention outward. At this stage there is confused agitation, and we take this agitation to be the true nature of the mind. Once we take this initial confusion to be the mind, we are committed to the delusion that the mind is inside the physical body.
“What you do not know is that the true, wondrous, luminously understanding mind contains the body and everything outside the body — mountains, rivers, sky, the entire world. You are like someone who fails to see a boundless ocean a hundred thousand miles across and is aware only of a single floating bubble. You see that bubble floating there and think it is the vast tide that surges toward the farthest branchings of the sea. Within your confusion you are confused further, just as you were about my lowered arm. The Thus-Come One says you are to be pitied.”
Most people think the mind is within the body. This is a great mistake. It is neither inside nor outside. It is not that our minds are within our bodies but that we are within the true mind.... Our mind encompasses empty space and the ten thousand things. It is not that empty space and the ten thousand things contain us. If you understand this doctrine, you have not lost track of your true mind. (II, 55)
Visual Awareness Is Not Dependent upon Conditions
Clasping his hands, Ānanda wept, mindful that the Buddha had compassionately rescued him and had bestowed upon him a profound teaching. He said respectfully to the Buddha, “Having heard the Buddha speak these marvelous words, I comprehend that my wondrously understanding mind is perfect at its source and that it is the everlasting ground of my mind. I understand the Dharma that the Buddha has just spoken. I see that I have been revering the Buddha with my conditioned mind. But, because I have only just now learned about my wondrously understanding mind, I do not dare as yet to accept it as my mind’s fundamental ground. May the Buddha in his all-pervading voice compassionately give further instruction about this in order to uproot my doubts and bring me back to the supreme Path!”
The Buddha said to Ānanda, “You and others like you still listen to the Dharma with conditioned minds, and therefore you fail to understand its real nature. Consider this example: suppose someone is pointing to the moon to show it to another person. That other person, guided by the pointing finger, should now look at the moon. But if he looks instead at the finger, taking it to be the moon, not only does he fail to see the moon, but he is mistaken, too, about the finger. He has confused the finger, with which someone is pointing to the moon, with the moon, which is being pointed to.
“Moreover, his mistake about the finger shows he has failed to distinguish light from dark, in that he has confused what is dark — the finger — with what is light — the moon. He does not know the difference between the nature of light and the nature of darkness. In this way, he is like you.
The moon represents the true mind. The Dharma which is spoken is the finger, since the Buddha speaks about the Dharma in order to point to the true mind.... The person in the example doesn’t recognize either the finger or the moon for what they are, and so they seem lost, although they are still there. He doesn’t understand light and darkness; in other words, he doesn’t know what is meant by “enlightenment” or what is meant by the “lack of enlightenment”; he doesn’t know what is meant by “ignorance” and what is meant by “true understanding.”... The Buddha speaks about the Dharma in order to point to the true mind, and it was Ānanda’s mistake to suppose that the true mind was in the Dharma. The Buddha points that out to Ānanda by means of the example of the finger and the moon. (II, 61–3)
“If you understand your mind to be what makes distinctions when you hear me speak about the Dharma, then that mind of yours would necessarily exist on its own, apart from my speaking, which it is making distinctions about. By analogy, a traveler who stops at an inn may stay for a night; he then goes on his way. He does not live there all the time, unlike the innkeeper, who, as the host, does not go anywhere.
“In the same way, if what makes distinctions when you hear me speak were truly your mind, then it would not go anywhere. But could the nature of the mind be such that it makes distinctions about sound independently of sound? And the mind that makes distinctions about my voice also makes distinctions about my appearance. What makes distinctions about visible objects cannot do so independently of the visible objects it distinguishes. Your mind that makes distinctions does not exist independently of the objects that it distinguishes. And when the making of distinctions ceases such that neither space nor objects are distinguished — the state that Maskari Gośālīputra and the others wrongly call the ‘truth of the unmanifested nature’18 — even then, your mind does not have a distinction-making nature that exists independent of objects of mind. Thus each of your mental states is dependent on something else. They are not like the host of an inn.”
Ānanda said, “If each of my mental states is dependent on something else, then is the fundamental, wondrously understanding mind of which the Thus-Come One speaks also dependent on something else? I only hope that the Buddha will take pity on us and explain.”
The B
uddha said to Ānanda, “As you see me now, the fundamental, luminous essence of visual awareness is not the wondrous, essential, understanding mind; nevertheless, it can be compared to a second moon rather than to a reflection of the moon.19
“Listen attentively. I will now show you what does not depend on anything.
“This great lecture hall, Ānanda, opens to the east. Thus when the sun rises, the hall is flooded with light. But the hall is in darkness in the middle of the night if the moon has not risen or if the sky is obscured by clouds or fog. Further, one can see out through cracks in the doors and shutters, but the walls and roof block the view. Where the various objects are distinguished, we can perceive how they are related to one another, but where there are no objects, space is all that one sees. Where mists or clouds of dust are present, objects are obscured or distorted. Once the mist has dispersed or once the dust has settled so that the air is pure again, one can again see everything clearly.
“Ānanda, you have all observed how aspects of these phenomena will change. Now I will show you how the presence of each of them depends on a condition necessary to it. What are the conditions necessary to these changing phenomena, Ānanda? The sun is a necessary condition for sunlight, since there can be no sunlight without the sun. Therefore the sunlight is dependent upon the sun, which is a necessary condition for its presence. The moon’s absence is a necessary condition for the darkness in the hall. Cracks in the doors and shutters are necessary conditions for your being able to see out. The walls and roof are necessary conditions for the view being blocked. Distinguishing the various objects is a necessary condition for observing how they are related to one another. The absence of objects is a necessary condition for seeing only space. Mists and clouds of dust are necessary conditions for obscuring or distorting our visual awareness of objects. Dispersal of the mist and the settling of the dust are necessary conditions for seeing clearly again. And every act of seeing the changing phenomena of this world belongs to one of these types.