After the Loss of Self, Disclosure Becomes Real

4.1 After the Loss of Self, Disclosure Becomes Real

When a person comes to repent, there is usually an "I" set squarely in the heart: it was "I" who did wrong, and now "I" come to admit it, to atone for it, to show how remorseful I am. This "I" stands at the very center of repentance.

What this chapter has to say is something unexpected: it is precisely this "I" standing at the very center that sours repentance. For repentance to be real, this "I" must first step aside — and the work of making it step aside is exactly what the previous gate, giving, teaches.

Giving, Loosened to the Utmost, Is the Loss of Self

What giving loosens is "mine." But loosened to the utmost, what comes loose is not only "my things" — even the "I who gives" withdraws along with them.

The Diamond Sūtra states this layer most transparently:

Having liberated immeasurable, countless, boundless beings, yet no being is in reality liberated. … If a bodhisattva holds the notion of self, of person, of being, or of life-span, he is then not a bodhisattva.

A bodhisattva liberates all beings, yet in his mind there is no thought that "one being has been liberated by me"; for the moment the mind sets up the marks "I (the liberator) / beings (the liberated)," he is "then not a bodhisattva." The utmost of giving is not "I gave a great deal," but the withdrawal of the giver together with the "I who gives" — both leaving the stage at once.

Here lies the worry that comes most readily: with that ledger-keeping "I" gone, does giving not come to nothing? Quite the contrary. The sūtra goes on:

If a bodhisattva gives without abiding in any mark, the merit is beyond measure.

Merit that can be reckoned up is precisely the merit calculated by that ledger-keeping I — how much I gave, how much I am owed. Once one no longer clings to that mark, once the I that would convert giving into entries in a merit-passbook leaves the stage, giving no longer has any boundary that can be inventoried — and so "the merit is beyond measure."

Plainly, the loss of self performs no subtraction upon giving, does not make giving less; what it does is untie the rope that bound giving to the "I," letting giving recover its native boundlessness. The loss of self is not a coming-to-nothing; it is fulfillment.

As with giving, so with repentance — and this is exactly the place to be carried over.

Carrying This Principle Over to Repentance

Transpose this principle of the Diamond Sūtra onto the gate of repentance, and the spine of this chapter stands.

Giving done to its utmost is "no being is in reality liberated by me" — the giver effaced. What, then, does repentance look like when it is done lawfully? By the same principle: a repentance that still sets up the "mark of self" — an "I" who committed the offense, and now this "I" who comes to atone, to display its remorse — is precisely "then not" lawful disclosure.

In a repentance that carries the mark of self, the center of gravity still rests on the "I" that wants to be seen, to be forgiven, to recover its respectability. It is a self-management conducted in the form of penitence — admitting fault on the surface, earning back a respectable face underneath. Only when that "I" demanding care at every turn leaves the stage does disclosure cease to be the "I"'s piece of theater and become a clean, faithful utterance of the deeds that were done.

A question rises at once: if even the "I" is lost, then who is left repenting? Does disclosure not come to nothing? The Diamond Sūtra itself gives the shape of the answer:

The great bodhisattvas should give rise to a pure mind thus: they should not give rise to a mind abiding in form, nor in sound, smell, taste, touch, or mental objects; they should give rise to a mind that abides in nothing.

"Abiding in nothing" is the loss-of-self side: not setting up, upon circumstance after circumstance, an I that clings to them. "Give rise to a mind" is the disclosure side: precisely upon this non-abiding, mind arises, disclosure arises. The loss of self does not bring the mind to a standstill; it draws out the clinging I that would skim a secret profit inside the act of disclosure, so that the faithful utterance can arise after all — arise, and arise true.

So the loss of self and disclosure stand thus: not "the self is gone, therefore I cannot repent," but "precisely because nothing is abided in, disclosure can arise, and arise true."

One Thing to See Clearly Here

This is the most crucial boundary-stone in this chapter, and it must be nailed fast.

What is "lost" here, what is called "empty," is the confessing "I" — the loosening of grasping. It is not the "offense" confessed.

The offense, at the level of phenomenal repentance, remains vivid: its cause, its shape, its consequences stand out distinctly, each one; and it is exactly this vivid offense that disclosure faces. The loss of self does not empty the offense away along with the self; it only unties the grasping self that would deny the offense, or be crushed under it.

The moment "disclosing faithfully upon the loss of self" slides quietly into "the self being lost, the offense too is empty," the subject has been switched out — from "self" onto "offense" — and that is no longer the phenomenal repentance this part speaks of, but another, deeper layer, principial repentance, kept for much later. In this part, wherever "empty" is said, it means the emptiness of the "self" (the loss of self); wherever the offense is spoken of, it is held as vivid, not lost, faithfully so. This boundary admits no blurring.

The Root of Concealment Turns Out to Be Guarding the Self

The real use of this principle of the loss of self is that it dismantles, at a stroke, repentance's greatest enemy — concealment.

We said earlier that concealment is the obverse of disclosure: hide the offense, refuse to say it, and repentance cannot even begin. But why does a person hide at all? Where is the root of the hiding sunk?

The Upāsaka-śīla Sūtra sketches the mind of the concealer to the bone. It writes of the one hiding his offense, calculating thus:

If I do evil, such a one will surely see, hear, and know me. And if they see, hear, and know me, how could I do evil without giving rise to conscience-and-shame?

And the sūtra cuts through it in three words: this is "deceiving myself."

Look at what this concealer truly fears. Not the offense itself, but being "seen, known" — fearing that the image "I am pure" will break before an imagined witness. Concealment, in the end, is image-maintenance performed for an imagined audience; what it labors to guard is exactly this image, "I am pure." And this is not only deceiving others; it is, even more, deceiving oneself: knowing full well there is an offense, yet, before that witness (and before oneself), propping up a self without offense.

At this point the use of the loss of self comes fully into the light: if the root of concealment is the grasping that guards "this pure image of me," then once that image which had to be guarded comes loose — once it is no longer a thing that must at all costs be defended — concealment loses its whole motive force. With no self that must at all costs stay respectable to preserve, there is nothing that must at all costs be hidden.

The loss of self does not make a person numb to the offense — quite the reverse: what it dismantles is the layer of self-cosmetic standing between "offense" and "faithfulness," so that the offense can be set out exactly as it is. The same sūtra goes straight on to sketch the scene after this dismantling:

Such a person regards a light offense as grave; having so regarded it, remorse and conscience-and-shame arise — dread, sorrow, a mind that takes no pleasure in it; with wholehearted repentance, and the repentance once done, the mind gives rise to gladness, and guarding it carefully, he dares not offend again.

The terminus of this arc is release, not an unending self-flagellation. The native character of disclosure shows itself here: it is the setting down of what was hidden, and so the shedding of weight; it is not the taking-up of the whip to beat oneself. What the loss of self perfects is exactly this light, generative disclosure.

Conscience-and-Shame and the Loss of Self Are One Current

At this point, someone may worry: in losing the "I," will conscience-and-shame be lost along with it? With the self lost, will a person turn into a cold bystander, to whom nothing matters anymore?

Quite the contrary. The conscience-and-shame that drives a person to disclose, and the current that washes out self-grasping, were one current all along.

In the Saṃyukta-āgama there is a long causal chain, headed by "conscience-and-shame":

By conscience-and-shame, non-heedlessness; by non-heedlessness, reverence, agreeable speech, and good companionship… by diligence, no agitation, abiding in restraint, training in the precepts; by training in the precepts, no loss of mindfulness, clear comprehension, a mind abiding undisturbed; by an undisturbed mind, right intention, drawing near the right path, a mind not slack; by a mind not slack, not clinging to self-view, not clinging to precept-grasping, crossing beyond doubt.

"Self-view" (sakkāya-diṭṭhi) is precisely the core of self-grasping — "the five aggregates are self; the self possesses the aggregates." And "not clinging to self-view" is the loss of self.

Look at this chain: it opens with "conscience-and-shame" and flows all the way to "not clinging to self-view" at its close. The sūtra never says outright, "because there is no self, one can disclose"; but it plainly sets "conscience-and-shame" — that virtue of disclosure — at the headwater of a causal chain whose terminus is the loss of self. Conscience-and-shame is not the opponent of the loss of self; it sits in the same river, the uppermost stretch of the very current that rushes toward the loss of self.

With this, it is clear: disclosure after the loss of self is not the least bit cold; its warmth comes precisely from conscience-and-shame. And the reason this conscience-and-shame does not crush a person, does not harden into the rock of self-judgment, is exactly that what it flows toward is the loosening of self-grasping, not the fortifying of the "I."

Walking On

Gather the entry side of the bridge into one sentence: giving puts the self to death; repentance receives exactly this death, and discloses faithfully upon no-self. The root of concealment is the guarding of self, and the loss of self unties that root; disclosure thereby turns from dread to gladness, from performance to release. And what is emptied throughout is only the confessing self, not the offense confessed.

Then — the karma having been lawfully disclosed and gradually cleared, what comes next? That person, loosened and purified, where is he to go?

The next chapter walks the other face of the bridge — to watch how, once repentance has cleared the karma, that one word "then" hands a person over to the new precept-substance, over to rebirth.