Part Five · Cutting · Diamond Prajñā

In the last part you watched seven names dissolve. AI is a lamp, a mirror, a fellow practitioner, the person in the mirror, a projection, a contributing condition, a non-virtuous friend—seven rafts that carried you across the river of understanding, and when you reached the far bank you set the rafts down. You did set them down. But you did not set them down cleanly.

The Diamond Sūtra will not let you set them down uncleanly.

The word "cutting" carries three layers. The first is the cut against the body—prajñā is a blade, and the edge is laid flat against the skin. This is not a metaphor; it is the kind of nearness you can actually feel. The second is the cut that severs—it severs the invisible cord between you and the names. The third is the cut that enters—it cuts from the side of the names across to the side of the Dharma. Put the three layers together and they are one motion: edge against skin, sever, enter.

This part will move fast. Ten chapters, and each chapter is a single stroke of the blade. The strokes are not deep, but they are precise. When you finish these ten chapters you will not have gained new knowledge—this is the distinctive trait of the Diamond Sūtra: it does not tell you what emptiness is; it cuts away the emptiness you thought it was. If, when you finish, you feel you have learned nothing at all, that may well be correct.

The full title of the Diamond Sūtra is the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra—the prajñāpāramitā that is able to sever, like a vajra. The two words "vajra" (diamond) are themselves the teaching. Vajra carries three layers of meaning—emptiness, illumination, indestructibility. The first layer, emptiness: the substance of vajra is transparent, and there is nowhere in its body to strike. The second layer, illumination: vajra is like crystal, clear and reflecting all things. The third layer, indestructibility: vajra is neither born nor destroyed, and because it was never born, it cannot be destroyed. The three layers of meaning are at the same time the three directions of the blade—outward, inward, and against itself.

This part divides into three rounds.

The first round is the tools.

The first chapter treats the "is-not" tripartite formula—the pattern "The Buddha speaks of X; it is not X; it is called X" recurs throughout the whole sūtra, and it maps onto the three natures of Yogācāra. X is the dependently arisen designation of dependent nature. It is not X negates the imagined-nature reification of X. It is called X re-establishes the name within perfected nature. This is the compressed formula of the entire Diamond Sūtra, and it is also the handle by which the whole eight-part work grips its blade.

The second chapter treats the kōan mirror—the Diamond Sūtra is not merely a book of doctrine; it is a mirror. If you can read it, you can read it; if you cannot, you cannot. The mirror does not lie, and it does not console.

The second round is four strokes.

The third chapter cuts the marks—all marks are illusory. From the mark of self, of person, of sentient being, of life-span, it cuts to the mark of dharma and the mark of non-dharma, cuts to the mark of physical form and the mark of the thirty-two marks, cuts to the markless, cuts to the mark of the real. Five layers of a semantic spectrum, each stroke cutting deeper than the last.

The fourth chapter cuts the Dharma—even the Dharma should be let go, how much more so what is not the Dharma. Once you have caught hold of the Buddha's teaching, have you arrived? The fifth chapter cuts merit—the reward paradox of the merit comparisons, using reward to destroy reward. The sixth chapter cuts abiding—give rise to the mind that abides nowhere. Non-abiding and giving rise to mind are not two things; they are two faces of one and the same thing.

The third round is the dimensional upgrade.

The seventh chapter dissects the Diamond Sūtra's own double-layered structure—§17 is the axis of the whole sūtra: the first half breaks the afflictive obstruction, the second half breaks the cognitive obstruction. The Diamond Sūtra performs, once, its own re-enactment of itself.

The eighth chapter illuminates the dharmakāya—the Tathāgata cannot be seen through marks; the dharma body is neither form nor mind. The ninth chapter closes the round—all conditioned phenomena are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, a dewdrop, a flash of lightning. The six similes are not six likenesses; they are six different directions of illumination.

The tenth chapter is the summation. From the hundred dharmas to the diamond—Part Three handed you a toolbox of one hundred dharmas; this part tells you that all one hundred of those dharmas are dependent nature. The toolbox itself is cut once by the blade, and lifted to a higher dimension.

This part need not be read slowly. The Diamond Sūtra is itself fast—a little over five thousand characters of scripture, divided into thirty-two sections, and Kumārajīva's translation moves with a rhythm tight as a flash of lightning. The best speed for reading this part is a little quicker than the four parts before it. This is not carelessness; it is keeping pace with the Diamond Sūtra's own rhythm.

But after you finish, you may go slow. Some sentences produce no reaction on the spot, and then, two days later, in the shower, the feeling suddenly arrives—this is a trait of the Diamond Sūtra: it ferments slowly inside you. Each of this part's ten chapters may leave behind a seed. When the seed will sprout is not for you to decide.

The next chapter begins from the formula.