The Diamond Sutra

by Red Pine

  Subhuti replied, “No, indeed, Bhagavan. It does not occur to the Tathagata: ‘I teach a dharma.’”

  The Buddha said, “Subhuti, if someone should claim, ‘the Tathagata teaches a dharma,’ such a claim would be untrue. Such a view of me, Subhuti, would be a misconception. And how so? In the teaching of a dharma, Subhuti, in the ‘teaching of a dharma’ there is no such dharma to be found as the ‘teaching of a dharma.’”

  Upon hearing this, the venerable Subhuti asked the Buddha, “Bhagavan, will there be any beings in the future, in the final epoch, in the final period, in the final five hundred years of the dharma-ending age, who hear a dharma such as this and believe it?”

  The Buddha said, “Neither beings, Subhuti, nor no beings. And how so? Beings, Subhuti, ‘beings’ are all spoken of by the Tathagata, Subhuti, as no beings. Thus are they called ‘beings.’”

  TWENTY-TWO: “Subhuti, what do you think? Did the Tathagata realize any such dharma as unexcelled, perfect enlightenment?”

  The venerable Subhuti replied, “No, indeed, Bhagavan. The Tathagata did not realize any such dharma, Bhagavan, as unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.”

  The Buddha said, “So it is, Subhuti. So it is. The slightest dharma is neither obtained nor found therein. Thus is it called ‘unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.’”

  TWENTY-THREE: “Furthermore, Subhuti, undifferentiated is this dharma in which nothing is differentiated. Thus is it called ‘unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.’ Without a self, without a being, without a life, without a soul, undifferentiated is this unexcelled, perfect enlightenment by means of which all auspicious dharmas are realized. And how so? Auspicious dharmas, Subhuti, ‘auspicious dharmas’ are spoken of by the Tathagata as ‘no dharmas.’ Thus are they called ‘auspicious dharmas. ’”

  TWENTY-FOUR: “Moreover, Subhuti, if a man or woman brought together as many piles of the seven jewels as all the Mount Sumerus in the billion worlds of the universe and gave them as a gift to the tathagatas, the arhans, the fully-enlightened ones, and a noble son or daughter grasped but a single four-line gatha of this dharma teaching of the perfection of wisdom and made it known to others, Subhuti, their body of merit would be greater by more than a hundredfold, indeed, by an amount beyond comparison.”

  TWENTY-FIVE: “Subhuti, what do you think? Does it occur to the Tathagata: ‘I rescue beings?’ Surely, Subhuti, you should hold no such view. And why not? Subhuti, the being does not exist who is rescued by the Tathagata. Subhuti, if any being were rescued by the Tathagata, the Tathagata would be attached to a self. He would be attached to a being, attached to a life, and attached to a soul. ‘Attachment to a self,’ Subhuti, is said by the Tathagata to be no attachment. Yet foolish people remain attached. And ‘foolish people,’ Subhuti, are said by the Tathagata to be no people. Thus are they called ‘foolish people.’”

  TWENTY-SIX: “Subhuti, what do you think? Can the Tathagata be seen by means of the possession of attributes?”

  Subhuti replied, “No, indeed, Bhagavan. As I understand the meaning of what the Buddha says, the Tathagata cannot be seen by means of the possession of attributes.”

  The Buddha said, “Well done, Subhuti. Well done. So it is, Subhuti. It is as you claim. The Tathagata cannot be seen by means of the possession of attributes. And why not? Subhuti, if the Tathagata could be seen by means of the possession of attributes, a universal king would be a tathagata. Hence, the Tathagata cannot be seen by means of the possession of attributes.”

  The venerable Subhuti said to the Buddha, “As I understand the meaning of what the Buddha says, the Tathagata cannot be seen by means of the possession of attributes.”

  On that occasion the Buddha then spoke this gatha:“Who looks for me in form

  who seeks me in a voice

  indulges in wasted effort

  such people see me not.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN: “Subhuti, what do you think? Was it due to the possession of attributes that the Tathagata realized unexcelled, perfect enlightenment? Subhuti, you should hold no such view. And why not? Subhuti, it could not have been due to the possession of attributes that the Tathagata realized unexcelled, perfect enlightenment.

  “Furthermore, Subhuti, someone may claim, ‘Those who set forth on the bodhisattva path announce the destruction or the end of some dharma.’ Subhuti, you should hold no such view. And why not? Those who set forth on the bodhisattva path do not announce the destruction or the end of any dharma.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT: “Furthermore, Subhuti, if a noble son or daughter took as many worlds as there are grains of sand in the Ganges and covered them with the seven jewels and gave them as a gift to the tathagatas, the arhans, the fully-enlightened ones, and a bodhisattva gained an acceptance of the selfless, birthless nature of dharmas, the body of merit produced as a result would be immeasurably, infinitely greater. And yet, Subhuti, this fearless bodhisattva would not obtain a body of merit.”

  The venerable Subhuti said, “But surely, Bhagavan, this bodhisattva would obtain a body of merit!”

  The Buddha replied, “They would, Subhuti, but without grasping it. Thus is it called ‘obtaining.’”

  TWENTY-NINE: “Furthermore, Subhuti, if anyone should claim that the Tathagata goes or comes or stands or sits or lies on a bed, Subhuti, they do not understand the meaning of my words. And why not? Subhuti, those who are called ‘tathagatas’ do not go anywhere, nor do they come from anywhere. Thus are they called ‘tathagatas, arhans, fully-enlightened ones.’”

  THIRTY: “Furthermore, Subhuti, if a noble son or daughter took as many worlds as there are specks of dust in a billion-world universe and by an expenditure of limitless energy ground them into a multitude of atoms, Subhuti, what do you think, would there be a great multitude of atoms?”

  Subhuti replied, “So there would, Bhagavan. So there would, Sugata. There would be a great multitude of atoms. And why? If a great multitude of atoms existed, Bhagavan, the Tathagata would not have spoken of a ‘multitude of atoms.’ And why? Bhagavan, this multitude of atoms of which the Tathagata speaks is said by the Tathagata to be no multitude. Thus is it called a ‘multitude of atoms.’ Also, Bhagavan, this ‘billion-world universe’ of which the Tathagata speaks is said by the Tathagata to be no universe. Thus is it called a ‘billionworld universe.’ And how so? Bhagavan, if a universe existed, attachment to an entity would exist. But whenever the Tathagata speaks of attachment to an entity, the Tathagata speaks of it as no attachment. Thus is it called ‘attachment to an entity.’”

  The Buddha said, “Subhuti, attachment to an entity is inexplainable and inexpressible. For it is neither a dharma nor no dharma. Foolish people, though, are attached.”

  THIRTY-ONE: “And how so? Subhuti, if someone should claim that the Tathagata speaks of a view of a self, or that the Tathagata speaks of a view of a being, a view of a life, or a view of a soul, Subhuti, would such a claim be true?”

  Subhuti said, “No, indeed, Bhagavan. No, indeed, Sugata. Such a claim would not be true. And why not? Bhagavan, when the Tathagata speaks of a view of a self, the Tathagata speaks of it as no view. Thus is it called a ‘view of a self.’”

  The Buddha said, “Indeed, Subhuti, so it is. Those who set forth on the bodhisattva path know, see, and believe all dharmas but know, see, and believe them without being attached to the perception of a dharma. And why not? The perception of a dharma, Subhuti, the ‘perception of a dharma’ is said by the Tathagata to be no perception. Thus is it called the ‘perception of a dharma.’

  THIRTY-TWO: “Furthermore, Subhuti, if a fearless bodhisattva filled measureless, infinite worlds with the seven jewels and gave them as an offering to the tathagatas, the arhans, the fully-enlightened ones, and a noble son or daughter grasped but a single four-line gatha of this teaching on the perfection of wisdom and memorized, discussed, recited, mastered, and explained it in detail to others, the body of merit produced by that noble son or daughter as a result would be immeasurably, infinitely greater. And how should they
explain it? By not explaining. Thus is it called ‘explaining.’

  “As a lamp, a cataract, a star in space

  an illusion, a dewdrop, a bubble

  a dream, a cloud, a flash of lightning

  view all created things like this.”

  All this was spoken by the Buddha to the joy of the elder Subhuti, the monks and nuns, the laymen and laywomen, the bodhisattvas, the devas, humans, asuras and gandharvas of the world all of whom were greatly pleased with what the Buddha said.

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

  THE Diamond Sutra may look like a book, but it’s really the body of the Buddha. It’s also your body, my body, all possible bodies. But it’s a body with nothing inside and nothing outside. It doesn’t exist in space or time. Nor is it a construct of the mind. It’s no mind. And yet because it’s no mind, it has room for compassion. This book is the offering of no mind, born of compassion for all suffering beings. Of all the sutras that teach this teaching, this is the diamond. It cuts through all delusions, illuminates what is real, and cannot be destroyed. It is the path on which all buddhas stand and walk. And to read it is to stand and walk with buddhas.

  Shakyamuni Buddha spoke this sutra one afternoon after he had returned from begging for his daily meal in one of the biggest cities of the ancient world. Instead of the shelter of a tree or a cave, he returned to a hut in a two-hundred-acre preserve that had been donated to the Buddha’s order by two of the city’s wealthiest and most powerful men. In addition to its forest, the preserve included enough dwellings to house more than a thousand of the Buddha’s disciples. After going inside one such dwelling to put away his patched robe and stone bowl, the Buddha came back outside, washed his feet and sat down on a wooden seat just beyond his door. His disciples were standing in the dirt courtyard in front of his hut, and some came forward to pay their respects. Then they all sat down on their mats. After they were settled, the venerable Subhuti rose and asked the Buddha how we all can become buddhas. The Diamond Sutra is the Buddha’s answer.

  No one knows precisely when this took place, but if Chih-yi’s classification of the Buddha’s sutras is correct, it would have been within ten years of 400 B.C., or within a decade either way of when the Buddha was sixty-five. It was during this period that the Buddha began teaching a teaching that cut through all other teachings, including his own, a teaching that refused to define itself as a teaching. Several decades earlier, following his Enlightenment, the Buddha had taught people to free themselves from suffering by realizing the impermanence and interdependence of everything upon which their suffering depended, including and especially themselves. The Buddha called this the realization of shunyata (emptiness), the view that because nothing exists independently of other things, it has no nature of its own, and everything is therefore empty, and this emptiness is the true nature of reality. Later, when the Buddha began teaching people to view emptiness itself as empty and to put the emptiness of emptiness to work in the liberation of all beings, few disciples grasped this new teaching, which he called the perfection of wisdom, the wisdom beyond wisdom. By the time of his Nirvana in 383 B.C., there were still not many members of his order who understood this teaching or its ramifications. And the sermons in which he taught this teaching were, most likely, not among those authenticated during the communal reading conducted a few months later in Rajagriha by the five hundred disciples who met at Buddhism’s First Council.

  But as word of the Buddha’s Nirvana spread throughout the Gangetic plain, thousands of other disciples converged on Rajagriha. Although they arrived too late to attend the First Council, this larger group decided to hold its own communal reading outside the same city. Under the leadership of Vashpa, one of the Buddha’s first five disciples, they also repeated from memory all the sermons they had heard the Buddha speak over the previous fifty years. We can only guess what they remembered or how their recollections may have differed from what the earlier group of monks remembered, but this second group was much larger and included lay members as well as monks and nuns. And the sermons they recalled must have represented a much larger and more diverse collection. The perfection of wisdom teachings, I suggest, were part of this second collection.

  None of this, though, was written down. The transmission of instruction was still oral. Some disciples memorized some teachings, and others memorized others. Then they returned to their towns and villages or the pilgrim’s trail. And as time went on, they shared what they had memorized. But they did not share everything with everyone. According to Conze, over the next two centuries, “the bulk of the doctrine, except for some moral maxims, and so on, was esoteric.” (“The Buddha’s Bodies in the Prajnaparamita” in Buddhist Studies 1934-1972, Oxford: Bruno Cassirer, 1967, p. 115) Thus, it is not surprising to find no sign of the perfection of wisdom until the second century B.C.

  Previously, in the middle of the third century B.C., contention developed over such minor rules as whether it was proper for monks and nuns to accept gold and silver or to carry a supply of salt or to drink semi-fermented rice wine or to eat past noon or to eat to excess. Such disagreements precipitated a schism, which no doubt had deeper causes and which resulted in the formation of two schools of Buddhism: the conservative Sthaviravadins (Pali: Theravadins), who considered themselves keepers of the Buddha’s original teachings, and the more liberal Mahasanghikas, who considered themselves keepers of the Buddha’s true teachings and who, incidentally, considered Vashpa their patriarch. By the middle of the second century B.C., these two schools had split into at least eighteen different sects, among which were the Purvashailas and the Dharmaguptakas. While the former was a Mahasanghika sect, and the latter belonged to the Sthaviravadin branch of early Buddhism, according to Poussin (Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, VIII: 335) and Nakamura (Indian Buddhism, Sanseido Press, 1980, p. 164), both possessed copies of the perfection of wisdom sutras, which were now being written down. And the Dharmaguptakas reportedely helped compile them into the encyclopedic Maha Prajnaparamita Sutra, which contains three-fourths of all such sutras. Though we are unlikely to learn exactly when or how members of these sects came into possession of these sutras, we know that the development of what later became known as Mahayana was based on such scriptures.

  As to their form, according to most scholars, the two dozen or so perfection of wisdom sutras we now have were first written down in verse and then in prose between the second century B.C. and the third century A.D. Although the issue of whether or not these sutras were compiled from preexisting materials or cut from new cloth is unlikely to be settled, except by faith, Conze and other scholars think that the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines was the first such scripture to appear and that it was followed by versions of the same basic sutra (same cast, same events, same teaching, often the same words) in 18,000, 25,000 and 100,000 lines. Conze also thought that after the expansion of the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines into its longer versions, it was then contracted into 4,000 and 2,500 lines, and elements of its teaching further edited into 700 lines, 500 lines, and finally into the Diamond Sutra in 300 lines. But one thing such an interpretation overlooks or fails to explain is that in the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines and in all the sutras based on it, Subhuti often takes the Buddha’s place in teaching the perfection of wisdom, whereas in the Diamond Sutra he hears this teaching for the first time and for the first time sets forth on the bodhisattva path. Thus, it makes more sense to view the Diamond Sutra as preceding these other texts, rather than following them. Of course, there’s linear time, and then there’s buddha time. And this sutra is definitely on buddha time.

  As for what it means, I have worn out my copy of this sutra trying to understand it. It isn’t very long and can be read in half an hour. Not long after I first read it thirty years ago, a fellow graduate student at Columbia translated it in less than a week. Still, it remained a mystery to me. Then three years later, while I was attending Taiwan’s College of Chinese Culture, the curator
of the college museum introduced me to an edition of the sutra that contained the commentaries of fifty-three Zen masters, and I finally began to slow down enough to understand the meaning of the words. School, however, only interfered with such an endeavor, and after one semester I moved to a Buddhist monastery in the hills south of Taipei. When I first arrived, the abbot said, “When you hear someone strike this wooden mallet, it’s time to eat. If you have any questions, just ask. Otherwise, you’re on your own here.” I never could come up with any questions, so mostly I read and slept and ate. But I also meditated several hours a day and took long walks in the hills, and every day after dinner, while waiting for evening services to begin, I sat on the monastery steps and read this sutra and the comments of the fifty-three Zen masters. Sometimes, I would just hold the book in my hands hoping its teaching would penetrate my skin and flow into my bloodstream and awaken my sleeping dragon mind. But I only heard the dragon snoring. Finally, after more than two years on the monastery steps, I sighed and packed my bag and put the sutra away and turned to poetry. And for the next twenty years, my copy gathered dust, until three years ago, when I pulled it from my bookshelf and decided it was time to try once more.