Gathering In the Six Sense-Roots: All Six Roots, Gathered Into One Recollection

5.1 Gathering In the Six Sense-Roots: All Six Roots, Gathered Into One Recollection

The first great sūtra that buddha-recollection walks into is the Śūraṅgama Sūtra.

In Fascicle Five of the Śūraṅgama, the Buddha asked the holy ones seated in the assembly: by which gate of practice had each of them cultivated to perfect penetration — full, unobstructed attainment? More than twenty holy ones rose, one by one, to answer. When the turn came to one bodhisattva — the sūtra records that "Mahāsthāmaprāpta, prince of the Dharma, together with his fifty-two fellow bodhisattvas, rose from his seat, bowed his head to the Buddha's feet" — he recounted his own origin:

I remember, in a past as far back as the sands of the Ganges, a Buddha appeared in the world named Limitless Light; twelve Tathāgatas followed one upon another in a single kalpa, the last of them named Light Surpassing Sun and Moon.

It was that Buddha, he says, who "taught me the buddha-recollection samādhi." Having set out the gate, he closed it with eight characters:

Without making any choice among them, I gather in the six sense-roots, so that pure recollection follows on unbroken, and attain samādhi. This is the foremost.

Gather the six roots, all of them, into this one recollection; and let this pure recollection follow on, recollection after recollection, unbroken.

These eight characters take the last part's "holding the name, one mind, undistracted" and walk it one long stride deeper.

From "One Root" to "Six Roots"

The last part said that "holding the name" is the mouth recollecting, the ear hearing, the mind keeping hold — in the end, the effort rides mainly on one or two places. Where the eyes are looking, what the nose is smelling, what the body is doing — these are mostly left to themselves.

Mahāsthāmaprāpta's "gathering in the six sense-roots" stretches that whole frame open. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind — not one of the six is left outside; all are gathered into this one buddha-name. It is not gathering one root while letting the other five run wild; it is all six roots together, drawn in upon this one recollection.

This is the deepening in space: from effort at one or two places, to six roots returning together to one.

"Gathering In" Does Not Mean Shutting the Six Roots Down

Here is where the misunderstanding comes easiest. "Gathering in the six sense-roots" sounds as though you were being told to close the eyes, plug the ears, stop the mouth, hold the breath — to switch the six roots off, one by one.

No.

Master Jiaoguang of the Ming put this layer with great precision: "gathering in the six sense-roots" means "causing the six sense-roots not to stir" — not shutting the six roots dead, but not letting them stir in deluded motion. The six roots go on working: the eye still sees, the ear still hears, the body still goes about its business — only they no longer scatter, each on its own, to chase the forms, sounds, scents, and tastes outside; all of them rest quietly, gathered into this one recollection of the Buddha.

This matters greatly. It means that gathering in the six sense-roots does not require a sealed retreat and a sitting cushion. Walking, working, eyes open, talking — the six roots can still all be gathered into this one recollection, so long as they do not run loose. From here on, buddha-recollection is no longer bound by the rope of "only in a quiet place."

Jiaoguang drew one more line, a very fine one. There are two ways of recollecting the Buddha, he said. One is done with the "mind-consciousness" that loves to discriminate and calculate — the mind recollects while muttering alongside, "I am recollecting the Buddha; how many have I done; am I doing it well?" The other he called "faculty-gathering recollection" — the six roots all quieted and drawn in, the whole of body and mind merged into this one recollection, with no self left standing at the side to mutter and tally. What "gathering in the six sense-roots" asks for is the second.

"Pure Recollection Uninterrupted": One Recollection After Another

Deepened in space — and deepened in time as well.

The last part's "one mind, undistracted" spoke of a certain stretch of time: the while you sit down to recollect the Buddha. If the mind is undistracted then, it counts.

"Pure recollection uninterrupted" asks for more. It asks that this recollection be pure, and the next be pure too — one following another, no stray thoughts wedged between, the line never breaking.

That sounds very hard — must one never raise a single stray thought, forever? In fact, no. Jiaoguang admits it plainly: this "pure recollection" is still, after all, "recollection" — not that ultimate sphere in which not one thought arises. So the true meaning of "uninterrupted" is this: when a stray thought rises, turn back to the pure recollection on the spot; turn back, and the line is rejoined. You are not being forbidden ever to raise a stray thought; you are being asked, every time you wander, to pull back at once. Put the work into each single recollection — guard this one, and this one is accomplished; guard the next, and the line carries on.

Mother and Child

To bring buddha-recollection fully across, Mahāsthāmaprāpta offered an exceedingly moving figure — mother and child recollecting each other.

Suppose two persons, he said: one keeps the other constantly in mind; the other has forgotten the first entirely. Two such people may pass face to face, and it is as though they never met; may see each other, and it is as though they never saw. But if the two hold each other deep in mind, then life after life they are like a body and its shadow, never again parted.

The Buddhas of the ten directions regard sentient beings with tender pity, the way a mother holds her child in mind. And yet — if the child keeps running outward and has forgotten the mother, what use is all the mother's remembering?

But if the child will only turn and hold the mother in mind, the way she holds him, then mother and child, life after life, will never again be far apart.

So Mahāsthāmaprāpta says:

If the sentient being's mind recollects the Buddha, is mindful of the Buddha, then in the present and in the future they will certainly see the Buddha; not far from the Buddha, without resort to any other means, the mind opens of itself.

Look closely at this layer of meaning. Whether you see the Buddha does not turn on whether the Buddha is present — the Buddha has been present all along, holding you in mind all along, as a mother never once forgets her child. Whether the meeting happens turns entirely on the child — on you: whether you are willing to turn around and recollect this Buddha who has never stopped holding you in mind.

The Buddha has never turned away. The one who turned away was always us. To recollect the Buddha is nothing more than the child, at last, turning his head once.

Then he offers a second figure — "fragrance-and-light adornment": like a person who keeps company with incense all day long, whose body comes quite naturally to carry its fragrance. Stay close to the Buddha long enough, and this mind, too, takes on the Buddha's scent, the Buddha's light.

Notice the direction this figure points. The world tends to picture practice as subtraction — sweeping stray thoughts away, little by little, until everything is swept clean. Mahāsthāmaprāpta's figure is addition: you are not being emptied out; you are being perfumed. Just stay near the Buddha, keep recollecting the Buddha, and that fragrance, that light, will settle into you of their own accord, little by little.

Twenty-Fourth, or Twenty-Fifth?

After Mahāsthāmaprāpta, the Śūraṅgama goes on to Avalokiteśvara's "ear-faculty perfect penetration." Then Mañjuśrī Bodhisattva comes forward to make the selection, and says: in this world of ours, the gate most suited to its people is Avalokiteśvara's.

So some have said: look — buddha-recollection stands twenty-fourth, Avalokiteśvara twenty-fifth, and Mañjuśrī chose Avalokiteśvara. Plainly, in the Śūraṅgama, buddha-recollection is placed toward the back, a grade below.

This is taking two things for one thing.

"Which number" is a position in a sequence. "Most suited" says: for which people, at which time, what fits best. These are two different matters. Mañjuśrī chose Avalokiteśvara for one particular road — "in this world, by one's own strength, awakening suddenly here and now." On that road, Avalokiteśvara's ear-faculty gate is first. But change roads — for those who cannot awaken on their own strength, who must lean on the Buddha's power to be received, who seek birth in the Pure Land — buddha-recollection is first.

Jiaoguang saw straight through this. By the long-standing rule of the sūtras and treatises, he said, the "seven great elements" ought to close with the consciousness-element. Yet the Śūraṅgama will not; it runs on to the faculty-element — to Mahāsthāmaprāpta's buddha-recollection — and only then closes. Why? Precisely to move buddha-recollection into the seat directly beside Avalokiteśvara. This is no demotion of buddha-recollection; it is the sūtra itself, quietly reserving for buddha-recollection a seat of honor immediately next to the first.

A number in the order is not a verdict of higher and lower. On the road where it is the fitting gate, buddha-recollection has always been first.

Gathered In, Then Sent Out

Mahāsthāmaprāpta's gate gathers everything inward — the six roots, all of it, gathered into this one recollection of the Buddha, gathered into mother and child recollecting each other, into the adornment of fragrance-and-light.

But in the great sūtras of the Mahāyāna there is another bodhisattva who moves in the opposite direction. He does not gather inward; he sends outward — one name, sent out, able to answer the cries of the suffering in a thousand places, ten thousand places, all at once.

That is the Avalokiteśvara of the Lotus Sūtra, and that gate of his — the "Universal Gate."

In the next chapter, we go to look at that gate, standing open toward all who suffer.