The Surangama Sutra

by Hsuan Hua

  Then the madness in our minds that is like Yajñadatta’s madness will cease of its own accord, and that ceasing itself is full awakening, which no one else can bestow upon us. Isn’t all this clearly an example of the working of causes and conditions? Why then does the Thus-Come One now reject the doctrine of causes and conditions? World-Honored One, it was through hearing about causes and conditions that I became enlightened, as did others of us younger Hearers of the Teaching, who still need instruction. Here also in this assembly now are Mahā-Maudgalyāyana, Śāriputra, Subhūti, and others who once followed Brahmin elders. They too heard the teaching about causes and conditions, and as a result, they made the resolve to enter the monastic life. They put an end to their outflows and became enlightened. Now you say that one does not after all realize enlightenment through causes and conditions. If that is so, the ultimate truth must be what Maskari Gośālīputra29 and those others in Rājagṛha30 teach — that enlightenment happens on its own. I only hope that now the Buddha will compassionately clear up the confusion which has been suffocating us.”

  The Buddha said to Ānanda, “Let us compare what you have said to the case of Yajñadatta in Śrāvastī. If the causes and conditions for his madness were to disappear, his sanity would naturally reappear on its own. Your argument concerning causes and conditions and things coming into being on their own amounts to nothing more than that. Ānanda, his head was just as it always was. It was already fundamentally part of him. Otherwise he would not have been who he was. How then could causes and conditions be involved in his running madly about out of fear that his face had disappeared?

  “His head was intact from the beginning. But if his madness were indeed due to causes and conditions, wouldn’t causes and conditions have also led to his head actually disappearing? Yet his head has always been present. His madness and terror arose from delusion. No actual change had taken place. How then could his madness have arisen from causes and conditions? And if his madness were fundamentally part of him — if madness and terror were the way he was in the first place — then why would his madness not have been already evident? But if his madness was not fundamentally part of him — if he was not deluded about his head all along — why did he run madly about?

  “Had Yajñadatta awakened and realized that his head was fundamentally part of him, he would have understood that his running about was madness. From this it should be clear to you that your objections about causes and conditions and about things coming into being on their own cannot be taken seriously. That is why I said that once the three causes and three conditions are eliminated, the enlightened mind is revealed. If you were to say that the enlightened mind comes into being with the cessation of the mind that arises and perishes, then you would be saying that the enlightened mind, too, is subject to arising and perishing. In truth, the effortless path to enlightenment is the ending of both arising and perishing.

  “Suppose, further, that it is possible that the enlightened mind could come into being on its own. Then it should be clear that it would come into being only with the perishing of the mind that comes into being and ceases to be. But that is still a coming into being and ceasing to be. Do not think that something which does not arise and perish must therefore be said to have come into being on its own.31 For example, a mixture is said to be created when components with different attributes are combined. What cannot be mixed together is said to be something that is fundamental. In fact, what is fundamental is not fundamental; what is mixed is not in fact a mixture. Neither what is mixed nor what is fundamental exists. Yet the nonexistence of the mixed and the fundamental must also be negated. Only then do we have a teaching that may be called Dharma that is more than mere speculation. This is a teaching that must be left behind, and the leaving behind, too, must be left behind. That may be called the Dharma that transcends idle speculation.

  “For you, awakening and nirvana are still so distant that you will have to spend eons in difficult practice before you will reach them. Your ability to memorize all twelve types of discourse spoken by the Buddha32 and proclaimed by the Thus-Come Ones in all ten directions — with their pure and wondrous truths innumerable as the River Ganges’ sands — has merely helped you to indulge in idle speculation. Certainly you have the ability to speak about causes and conditions and about things coming into being on their own with such understanding that people call you foremost in erudition; yet despite your many eons of accumulated learning, you were not able escape your difficulty with the young Mātaṅga woman. Why did you need me to recite the Śūraṅgama Mantra for you? In the young Mātaṅga woman’s heart the fires of lust were extinguished, and instantly she became a sage who must return only once.33 Now she has joined a group of vigorous practitioners of my Dharma. In her, the river of love has gone dry, and so now you are free of her.

  “Therefore, Ānanda, the many eons you have spent committing to memory the Thus-Come One’s esoteric, inconceivable, wondrous, and majestic Dharma are not equal to a single day spent cultivating karma that is free of outflows and is far removed from the two worldly torments of hate and love. The young Mātaṅga woman was a courtesan, and yet her love and desire were dispelled by the spiritual power of the mantra; now she is a nun named Prakṛti.34 She and Rāhula’s mother, Yaśodharā,35 have both become aware of their previous lives, and they know that, among the causes of their actions during many lifetimes, their craving for emotional love was the cause of their suffering. Now they have escaped their bonds and have received predictions.36 Why do you then continue to cheat yourself by standing still, merely watching and listening?”

  When Ānanda and the others in the great assembly had heard the Buddha’s instructions, their doubts and delusions were dispelled. Their minds awakened to the truth, and in body and mind they felt a serenity that they had never known before.

  * * *

  At this point in the narrative, Ānanda is still a first-stage Arhat. Among the Arhats, only those at the fourth stage, like Pūrṇa, are free of outflows.↩

  The emptiness of people and phenomena. People are empty of any real and permanent self or soul, and phenomena are empty of any real and permanent essential attributes.↩

  Skt. araṇya. A quiet place in a forest or other wilderness, and by extension, a place where spiritual practitioners dwell.↩

  This is coming into being, the first of three subtle aspects of delusion, which is the self-verifying division of the eighth consciousness.↩

  This is evolving, the second subtle aspect of delusion, which is the observing division of the eighth consciousness.↩

  This is appearance, the third subtle aspect of delusion, which is the observed division of the eighth consciousness. It is comprised of perceived objects, space, and beings.↩

  That is, space.↩

  That is, beings, considered uniform yet differentiated because all share sentience while taking various forms.↩

  The sixth and final coarse aspect of delusion is suffering due to karma.↩

  Skt. maṇḍala, Ch. lun 輪. Here the term is understood to mean the essence of the primary elements, and in this passage the two characters lun 輪 (wheel or circular object) and jing 精 (essence) are used interchangeably.↩

  The implication is that steps previous to this one have all been within the eighth consciousness.↩

  The first of the three perpetuations.↩

  The human fetus at the end of the first week after conception.↩

  The fetus at the end of the second week.↩

  Beings are the second of the perpetuations.↩

  The text is compressed. According to Ven. Yuanying, the meaning is more precisely: “Because of greed and love, they must have a body and life; once they have body and life, all have the desire to nourish them” (565).↩

  The third of the perpetuations.↩

  These are the first and the last two of the twelve links in the chain of dependent co-arising (Skt. pratītyasamutpāda, Ch. yin yuan 因緣), which is also translated as "depend
ent origination” and “interdependent arising.” Here all twelve links are understood to be included. They are:

  Because there is ignorance; there are formations.

  Because there are formations, there is consciousness.

  Because there is consciousness, there are name and form.

  Because there are name and form, there are the six faculties.

  Because there are the six faculties, there is contact.

  Because there is contact, there is perception.

  Because there is perception, there is craving.

  Because there is craving, there is grasping;.

  Because there is grasping, there is becoming.

  Because there is becoming, there is birth.

  and 12) Because there is birth, there is old age and there is death.

  ↩

  The Four Noble Truths. “Unsatisfying nature” and “dissatisfaction” render the Skt. duḥkha, Ch. ku 苦. “Suffering” is a widely used but somewhat misleading alternate translation.↩

  These are the six pāramītās, or perfecting practices, of the Bodhisattva. The text here gives transliterations of the Skt. dāna, śīla, vīrya, kṣānti, dhyāna, and prajñā. The word “pāramītā” has the sense of “that which brings one across the sea of suffering to the shores of nirvana.”↩

  “Arhat” is here a titular name for the Buddha, as is “One of Right and Universal Wisdom” (Skt. samyaksaṁbuddha, Ch. zheng bian zhi 正編知).↩

  Op. cit., 80.↩

  This tetralemma might be restated: “The Matrix of the Thus-Come One is identical with worldly and world-transcending phenomena and yet is not identical with them. It both is and is not identical to them and neither is nor is not identical to them.↩

  That is, the distinction-making mind of the sixth consciousness.↩

  That is, he became an Arhat at the fourth stage, at which one is no longer subject to rebirth.↩

  Ch. limei 魑魅. The translation is uncertain. The limei ghost is described in indigenous Chinese works as a kind of animal spirit or ghost that usually lives in the mountains. The corresponding Sanskrit is not clear. Given the context here, it is possibly the headless ghost known as blemya. See J. Duncan and M. Derret, “A Blemya in India,” in Numen, 49: 4 (2002), 460–74.↩

  When Ānanda speaks next, he restates what he takes to be the Buddha’s position here, and he identifies these “three conditions” as killing, stealing, and sexual desire. The three causes are not defined in the text; anger, desire, and delusion, the three poisons of the mind, are probably meant.↩

  The parable is told in full in chapter eight of the Lotus Sūtra.↩

  See part 2, note 10.↩

  A city in the kingdom of Magadha on the northeast Ganges Plain in what is now Bihar.↩

  This is the substance of Ānanda’s objection above.↩

  The twelve are prose passages, reiterative verses, instructional verses, teachings concerning causation, narratives, accounts of the Buddha’s previous lives, accounts of manifestations of spiritual power, analogies, questions and answers concerning doctrine, teachings spoken without request, broadenings of the teaching, and predictions of enlightenment.↩

  Skt. anāgāmin, a third-stage Arhat.↩

  The name means “Nature,” that is, one who understands her own nature.↩

  Yaśodharā was the wife of the Buddha Śākyamuṇi while he was still Prince Siddhartha. Rāhula was their son.↩

  That is, that at such and such a time and place they would become Buddhas with such and such names.↩

  Instructions for Practice

  Five Layers of Turbidity

  Once again Ānanda wept as he bowed at the Buddha’s feet. Then he knelt, and with his palms joined he said respectfully to the Buddha, “The Supreme, Compassionate, Pure, and Noble King has skillfully opened our minds. In response to our various situations and circumstances, he has been able to urge us on and to pull us benighted ones out of the sea of suffering in which we have been drowning.

  “World-Honored One, now that I have heard the Buddha explain this Dharma, I know that the Matrix of the Thus-Come One, which is the wondrous, enlightened mind that understands, extends throughout all ten directions. I know that it encompasses and supports the lands of the Thus-Come Ones in all ten directions — those pure and splendid lands of the Wondrous, Enlightened Kings. However, the Thus-Come One has also admonished me for merely listening to the Dharma without applying it to my practice. Now, therefore, I am like a wanderer who unexpectedly meets a celestial king. The king bestows upon the wanderer a magnificent house. The house is now his, yet in order to go in he will still need to find a door. I only hope that the Thus-Come One will not withhold his compassion from all of us in this assembly who are covered in darkness, so that we may renounce the Lesser Vehicle. May he show us the road that leads from our original resolve to the Thus-Come Ones’ bodiless nirvana.1 May he enable those of us who still need instruction to subdue our age-old habit of dependence on the objects of the senses, to master the dhāraṇī,2 and to gain the wisdom and vision of the Buddhas.” Having made this request, Ānanda bowed to the ground, and all in the assembly single-mindedly awaited the Buddha’s compassionate instruction.

  Then the World-Honored One took pity on all the Hearers of the Teaching and on the Solitary Sages in the assembly who did not yet abide effortlessly in the fully awakened mind. He took pity also on the beings who would be born after the Buddha’s bodiless nirvana, during the time of the Dharma’s ending. He revealed the wondrous path of practice in accord with the Supreme Vehicle, so that all would resolve their minds upon becoming fully awake.

  The period when the Buddha Śākyamuni was in the world is called the time of the right Dharma. During this period, which continued for a thousand years, people devoted themselves to meditation and samādhi. After the Buddha had entered nirvana and the thousand years of the time of the right Dharma had passed, the time of the semblance of Dharma began. It, too, lasted for a thousand years. During this period, people devoted themselves to building temples and stupas. They didn’t enter samādhi but instead sought to earn blessings from their work. When the Buddha was in the world, people sought wisdom, but during the time of the semblance of Dharma, they “ignored the roots and held on to the branches.” After the time of the semblance of Dharma came the time of the Dharma’s ending, which we are in now. In this time, people devote themselves neither to meditation and samādhi nor to the building of temples and stupas. They devote themselves to fighting. Wherever you go in the present age, people quarrel with people, families fight with families, and countries war against countries. In every space and corner of the globe there is contention and unrest. When we sit in meditation and study the Sutras, we make the time of right Dharma appear within the time of the Dharma’s ending. (IV, 140)

  He instructed Ānanda and the others in the assembly as follows: “You have all made a firm resolve to become enlightened, and you have not wearied of your practice of the samādhi of the Buddhas, the Thus-Come Ones. Therefore, you should now understand two definitive principles concerning your resolve to become enlightened. What are these two definitive principles? The first of the two, Ānanda, is that all of you who wish to renounce the Lesser Vehicle of the Hearers of the Teaching and to practice in accord with the Vehicle of the Bodhi-sattvas so that you can gain the wisdom and vision of the Buddhas, must examine the resolve that is the basis of your practice that leads to enlightenment.3 Is this resolve identical to the awakening that will be the result of your practice,4 or is it not?

  “If the mind that comes into being and ceases is the basis of your practice, Ānanda, then you will not be able to ride the Buddha’s Vehicle to where there is nothing that comes into being or ceases to be. For this reason, you should shine the light of your understanding on the phenomena of the material world. Since all phenomena are subject to change and decay, how could any of them serve as a basis for the practice of Dharma? Contemplate the phenomena of the world, Ānanda: which
one of them does not decay? But you will never hear of space decaying. Why? Space is unconditioned, and so it has never been and can never be subject to dissolution.

  “In your own body, what appears as solid is composed of the primary element earth, what is moist contains the primary element water, what has warmth belongs to the primary element fire, and movement constitutes the primary element wind. Because these four primary elements are bound together, your pure, perfect, wondrous enlightened mind that understands is divided into the functions of seeing, listening, touching, and cognition.5 Turbidity, in five layers, comes about as a result.

  “What is turbidity, Ānanda? Let us consider an example. Water in its original state is pure and clear, while soil, ashes, and sand in their original states are solid and opaque. These defining attributes of water and of soil, ashes, and sand are such that they are mutually incompatible. Suppose that someone were to pick up some soil and throw it into clear water. The soil now loses its solidity, and the water loses its purity. Together they appear clouded or, we may say, turbid. The five layers of turbidity occur in the same way.

  “As you look into space throughout all ten directions, Ānanda, no separation can be made between space and your visual awareness of it. If only space existed, then there would be nothing to be aware of it. If only awareness existed, then there would not be anything for it to be aware of. Therefore space and visual awareness become entangled with each other. With this entanglement, based on delusion, the turbidity of time comes into being. This is the first layer of turbidity.