The Surangama Sutra

by Hsuan Hua

  “Also within this dhyāna, Ānanda, are the five Heavens of Pure Abode. The gods in these heavens have by this time completely eliminated the nine stages of habitual delusion.70 Here both suffering and bliss have been forgotten. These gods will never again live at any lesser celestial level. They dwell together in a place of peace, each of them at an equal level of renunciation.

  These five higher heavens may be considered to be among the heavens of the fourth dhyāna, but these heavens are the dwelling places of sages, and so they are different from the other heavens of the fourth dhyāna. (VII, 228)

  [14] “First, Ānanda, are gods for whom both suffering and bliss have ended so that they no longer have to struggle with contrasting experiences. These beings are the gods of the Heaven Beyond Affliction.71

  [15] “Next are the gods who, having focused their practice exclusively on renunciation, no longer harbor any basis for even the thought of suffering and bliss. These are the gods of the Heaven Beyond Heat.72

  [16] “Next, throughout the worlds in the ten directions, their wondrous vision becomes so flawlessly clear that no perceived object can defile it. These are the gods of the Heaven of Refined Vision.

  [17] “Next, their skill in envisioning becomes yet more refined, like the skills of a master potter. These are the gods of the Heaven of Clear Envisioning.

  [18] “When their contemplation of the myriad subtleties of the nature of form and the nature of space reaches its ultimate point, they enter a state of boundlessness and become gods of the Highest Heaven of Form.

  “Ānanda, the gods of the lower heavens of the fourth dhāyna — and even their kings — cannot see the gods of these five higher heavens. They only hear about them with admiration, just as ordinary dull-witted people in the world cannot see Arhats dwelling in the wilderness or deep in the mountains, where they keep up their practices in their sacred places for awakening.

  “Ānanda, the gods of these eighteen heavens practice in solitude, free of entanglements. But they have not yet set down the burden of their bodies. Thus all these heavens comprise the Realm of Form.

  G. The Gods on the Four Planes of Formlessness

  “Moreover, Ānanda, at the very summit of the Realm of Form, the path again divides. On one path are those who in their practice of renunciation develop to perfection the full light of their wisdom. These gods will transcend all three realms and will become Arhats who will board the Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas.

  [1] “On the second path are gods who, having been successful in their practice of renunciation, realize that their bodies are an obstacle to further progress. They cause their bodies to vanish and to become like space. Then they become gods on the Plane of Boundless Space.

  [2] “Next are gods who, having caused the obstacle of their bodies to vanish, now find that there are no further obstacles of form for them to put an end to. Only their storehouse-consciousness and half of the subtle functions of the individuating consciousness remain. These are the gods on the Plane of Boundless Consciousness.

  At this point, these gods don’t have bodies; they only have consciousness. That consciousness is the ālaya-vijñāna, or storehouse-consciousness, also known as the eighth consciousness. Every move we make, every word we speak, everything we do and encounter in the course of our daily lives is stored in this consciousness. It is actually within the Matrix of the Thus-Come One, but at this point, the distinction between the eighth consciousness and the Matrix of the Thus-Come One has not completely disappeared.

  In these gods on the Plane of Boundless Consciousness, in addition to their storehouse-consciousness, there remains half of their individuating consciousness, their seventh consciousness, which is also known as the defiling consciousness. Although it is true that ignorance arises in the eighth consciousness,... it is only when the information stored in the eighth consciousness passes through the seventh consciousness that it becomes defiled. For these gods, the seventh consciousness is functioning only at half of its capacity, so the defilement that remains is extremely subtle. (VII, 234)

  [3] “When both form and space have come to an end for these gods, and when their conscious minds73 have disappeared entirely, then there is stillness throughout the ten directions. Nothing remains, and there is no place to go. These are the gods on the Plane on Which One Has Nothing.

  [4] “When their storehouse-consciousness is completely inactive, these gods can make use of this cessation of activity to contemplate deeply, so that within the endlessness of that consciousness, the nature that lies at its ending nevertheless becomes known to them. That consciousness now seems to exist and yet not to exist; it seems to have disappeared and yet has not. These are the gods on the Plane on Which Cognition Is Absent Yet Not Absent.74

  “The gods in these heavens have deeply contemplated their emptied consciousness and yet have failed to understand its true nature.75 This is the end of the sages’ path that led from the Heavens of Pure Abode. These gods now become Arhats of inferior ability who turn away from the Vehicle of the Bodhisattvas.

  “Other gods, who have come from the Heaven of Cessation of Cognition76 and from other heavens that are not on the right path, never return from their deep contemplation of their emptied consciousnesses.77 Because they lack the knowledge they need, they become lost in these heavens. As gods who have outflows, they eventually will fall back into the cycle of death and rebirth.

  “Ānanda, the gods of these heavens78 are not enlightened. Having enjoyed the rewards that were the results of their good karma, they must again be bound to the cycle of death and rebirth. But the kings of these heavens are Bodhisattvas. They play this role while in samādhi, and thereby they gradually progress in their practice towards the level of the Sages.79

  “With regard to the gods on these four planes of formlessness, Ānanda, the activities of their bodies disappear and their mental activities cease so that they abide in samādhi. They are no longer burdened by any form that is the result of karma.80 These four heavens comprise the realm of formlessness.

  “None of the gods of these heavens fully comprehend the wondrous enlightened mind that understands. Such accumulated delusions as theirs bring about the illusory existence of the three realms. In the midst of these realms, each individual81 in his delusion sinks into the seven destinies to join other beings whose karmas are similar.”

  The Destiny of Asuras

  “Moreover, Ānanda, in the Three Realms there are also the asuras, who are of four kinds.

  [1] “Asuras who take the path of ghosts, devoting their strength to protecting the Dharma, have the spiritual power to live in the air. These asuras are born from eggs, and are included in the destiny of ghosts.

  [2] “Some asuras, because their merit is insufficient, fall from the heavens and are fated to dwell beneath the sun and the moon.82 These asuras are born from wombs and are included in the destiny of people.

  [3] “Some asuras are world-commanding kings, both powerful and fearless. They contend for mastery with King Brahma, with Śakra, Lord of the Heavens, and with the Four Celestial Kings. These asuras are born by metamorphosis and are included in the destiny of gods.

  [4] “Some asuras — a baser kind, Ānanda — are born in deepwater caves in the middle of the ocean. By day they emerge to fly about in the air, and at night they return to their watery abodes. These asuras are born in the presence of moisture and are included in the destiny of animals.”

  The Seven Destinies Are the Result of Karma

  “Ānanda, such is a detailed explanation of the seven destinies — of beings in the hells and of ghosts, animals, humans, ascetic masters, gods, and asuras. In their confusion, all are submerged in the attributes of the conditioned world. Their deluded mental activity leads them into rebirth in accordance with their karma. Within the wondrous perfect understanding that is the fundamental unconditioned mind, these destinies are like mirages of flowers seen in the sky. These destinies do not actually occupy any location; they are simply illusions. Even less do
they signify anything real.

  “These various beings fail to recognize the fundamental mind, Ānanda, and so they are bound to the cycle of death and rebirth. They pass through countless eons without ever attaining genuine purity, all because they indulge in killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. If they break the precepts against these three, they will be born into the destiny of the ghosts and the other inauspicious destinies. If they avoid these offenses, they will enter the destinies of the gods and the other auspicious places of rebirth.83 Because these beings are constantly torn between their tendency to commit offenses and their tendency to refrain from committing offenses, they continue to be bound to the cycle of death and rebirth.

  “When beings are able to enter this wondrous samādhi,84 they abide in a wondrous and everlasting stillness. That stillness is beyond the duality of existence and nonexistence, and that negating of duality is also ended. Since they have gone beyond the state in which there is killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, how could they possibly commit those offenses?

  “Ānanda, each being who has not put an end to these three intentional acts creates his own individual karma. Although each being’s retribution is his own, beings may undergo a common retribution together in a definite place. Their intentional acts arise from delusion, which itself has no cause. No matter how exhaustively you search for a cause, you will not find one.85

  “You should advise practitioners that if they wish to realize full awakening through their spiritual practice, they must no longer engage in these three deluded acts. If they do not cease engaging in them, then even if they should develop spiritual powers, their skills will be limited to the circumstances of the conditioned world. If they cannot put an end to their habits of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct, they will take the path that leads to existence as a demon.

  “Even if they want to cease committing these offenses, they will end up engaging in falsehood and making the offenses worse. The Thus-Come One says that such beings are pathetic and greatly to be pitied. You all should understand that you are responsible for your own deluded actions. Your true nature that is capable of full awakening is not to blame.

  People start out by telling a lie, but later they say that they hadn’t lied — which is another lie. If you tell a lie and then admit it, there’s just one lie. But someone who denies the first lie he told ends up by telling two. In this way he compounds his offenses. (VII, 251)

  “What has been spoken here is the right teaching. To teach otherwise is the work of the demon-king.”

  * * *

  “Arid” because one’s desires have dried up and one has not yet experienced the moisture of Dharma. This is the first of the fifty-seven stages of the Bodhisattava’s enlightenment, as outlined in part 9.4.↩

  Skt. daśabhūmi, Ch. shi di 十地. See part 9.4.↩

  That is, equivalent to the enlightenment of a Buddha.↩

  The Buddha does not answer Ānanda’s question immediately. His answers are given in part 9.4.↩

  The Buddha here gives a brief summary of the coming into being of self and world, which was the subject of a much longer exegesis in part 4. The Chinese text here is particularly terse.↩

  The numbering in this chapter has been added by the translators.↩

  The “mental activity” is that of the being who has experienced death and seeks rebirth. Its mental activity combines with the “vital energies” of its future parents at the moment of conception. The rhetorical pattern of this paragraph is repeated in the next three paragraphs for beings born from wombs, in the presence of moisture, and via metamorphosis.↩

  Skt. kalala.↩

  Skt. arbuda.↩

  Skt. peśī.↩

  Skt. ghana. The ghana is mentioned in the text in each of the next eight paragraphs, but this seems to be a literary embellishment in the Chinese translation, since some of the beings do not seem to be among those that develop from a fetus. In these cases the present translation renders “ghana” simply as “development.”↩

  For more on the gods on the planes of formlessness, see part 9.11g.↩

  One instance of the example given by the text could be the association of the shrimp heptacarpus kincaidi and lebbeus grandimanus with sea anemones of the Urticina genus. In coral reefs the shrimp live well-protected within the circle formed by the sea anemone’s venomous tentacles; the shrimp are immune to the venom. Unlike the anemones, the shrimp have highly developed eyes, and they alert the anemones to the approach of predators. They are among the beings “whose physical forms are not self-sufficient,” presumably so-called because they are dependent on other beings. they are because they are born among other species.↩

  See part 8.2.↩

  The meaning seems to be that they do not understand what species↩

  The owl referred to here may well be the grass owl (tyto longimembris), a cousin of the barn owl. It nests in tussocks of grass on the ground. It is found in both India and China, as well as in Southeast Asia and Australia. The “mirror-smashing bird” (Ch. puo jing niao 破鏡鳥) is another matter. Both Ven. Hsüan Hua (Shurangama Sutra VI, 180) and Ven. Yuanying (1133) mention a mythical animal that was said to incubate a fruit to produce its young, but these two commentators note that this animal was said to resemble a wolf and was therefore not a bird, and that the Chinese translators must have misunderstood the original. A further difficulty here is that, while there are animals that eat their young in certain stressed circumstances, the present translators were unable to discover any reference to species whose young eat their parents. Nevertheless, the principle of the passage is intact: that there are instances in which the natural cognitive tendency to cherish parents and offspring is suspended.↩

  That is, each of the distortions named in the previous section applies not only to one class of being but to all twelve.↩

  The three steps are necessary if the practitioner is to enter the path of the Bodhisattva.↩

  Skt. amṛta, Ch. gan lu 甘露, the drink of the gods.↩

  That is, onions, garlic, shallots, leeks, and chives, and by extension, any similar member of the allium (lily) family.↩

  See part 4, note 32.↩

  One of the five spiritual eyes. See part 3, note 38.↩

  “Fruits and seeds that can germinate and roots (bulbs, tubers) that can be planted again should be made ‘allowable’ or kappiya for bhikkhus [monks]. An unordained person can do this by touching it with fire, by drawing a knife over it, or by marking it with a fingernail.... There is no need for the ceremony with seedless fruit, or with fruit if the seeds are unripe so that they cannot germinate.... Also, if the bhikkhu carefully eats certain sorts of fruits — for instance, mangoes, jackfruit, plums, peaches, etc. — without damaging the seeds, there is no offense.” Bhikkhu Ariyesake, The Bhikkhus’ Rules: A Guide for Laypeople (Kallista, Victoria, Australia: Sanghāloka Forest Hermitage, 1998), 133.↩

  The pārājikas (sexual misconduct, killing, theft, and making false claims).↩

  Another of the five spiritual eyes.↩

  The Buddha here briefly reiterates the instructions given by the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī and the Bodhisattva Who Hears the Cries of the World. See part 6.2.↩

  The Buddha now undertakes to answer the question Ānanda raised at the beginning of part 9.↩

  The numbering has been added by the translators.↩

  That is, the stage of Arid Wisdom.↩

  For a more detailed explanation of the Ten Abodes, see The Flower Adornment Sūtra, The Ten Dwellings, with the commentary of Tripitaka Master Hua, trans. Buddhist Text Translation Society (Talmage, California: Dharma-Realm Buddhist University, 1981); also “Ten Abodes,” Chapter 15 of The Flower Ornament Scripture, trans. Thomas Cleary (Boston: Shambhala, 1993), 384ff.↩

  This part of the Bodhisattva’s spiritual progress, the Ten Abodes, is described with metaphorical reference to the process of a child being physically born into the Buddha’s family. Accordingly, the first four abodes correspond t
o the conception of the child, the next four to the fetal stage, the ninth to birth, and the tenth to growth toward maturity.↩

  Skt. antarābhava, Ch. zhong yin shen 中陰身.↩

  For a fuller explanation of the Ten Practices, see Cleary, 454 ff.↩

  The sequence of the Bodhisattva’s Ten Practices correspond to the ten perfections (Skt. pāramitā). These are the six perfections (giving, following precepts, patience, vigor, mindfulness, and wisdom) together with four others: skill-in-means, vows, powers, and knowledge of expedients.↩

  The translation here follows the interpretation of Ven. Zhenjiao (2079).↩

  “Dedicating” in the sense of wishing that the positive results of one’s practice will be enjoyed by other beings.↩

  For a full explanation of the Ten Grounds, see The Flower Adornment Sūtra: The Ten Grounds, 2 vols. (Talmage, California: Dharma-Realm Buddhist Association, 1980).↩

  The meaning here is that the Buddhas come back along the Bodhisattva Path in order to teach beings, while the Bodhisattvas are advancing towards the state of the Buddhas (Zhenjiao, 2135).↩

  The fifty-seven positions along the Bodhisattva path may be thought of as a total of twelve in that there are seven positions listed singly (Arid Wisdom, Heating Up, Standing at the Peak, Patience, Preeminence in the World, Equivalent Enlightenment, and Wondrous Awakening) and five groups of ten positions (Ten Stages of Stabilizing the Mind, Ten Abodes, Ten Practices, Ten Dedications, and Ten Grounds).↩