金剛般若波羅蜜經 心要連讀

The whole of the Diamond Sūtra begins with a meal. The Buddha speaks no Dharma first; when the hour comes he simply robes himself, takes up his bowl, walks into the city begging from house to house, returns, eats, washes his feet, arranges his seat, and sits down. Reading this stretch of ordinary daily living, the ancient masters drew out of it the very eye of the whole sūtra: the Dharma lies nowhere else than within this dependently-arisen everyday — robing, begging, washing the feet, laying out the seat, not one of them other than conditioned arising (依他, paratantra); and the perfectly-accomplished (圓成實, pariniṣpanna) is not apart from this plain, present moment. Of the single act of arranging a seat Zhiyi says, 「敷座……即諸法空為座」—— even to spread a seat and sit is already a wordless, bodily teaching of the emptiness of all dharmas. And so, in this division, before a word is spoken, prajñā is already here; only in the next division, when Subhūti asks 「云何應住，云何降伏其心」(How should one abide? How should one subdue the mind?), does the World-Honored One begin, phrase by phrase, to put it into speech.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 1 · The Origin of the Dharma Assembly · essence · Spring 2026

The whole sweep of this sūtra's demolition of grasping begins with a single question. Subhūti rises from his seat and first praises the Buddha for so well guarding and so well entrusting—for upholding the seed of buddhahood already innate in living beings, that it may carry on unbroken. Then he raises his two questions: once the mind of awakening (bodhicitta) has been roused, where should this mind abide? And how should it be subdued? The questions seem to be about where practice begins, but at bottom they ask about one thing only—the mind. The ancient masters read 「住」(abiding) as settling the mind upon the vow that seeks awakening, and 「降伏」(subduing) as breaking down the mind that scatters, chases after objects, and discriminates upside-down; settling the mind and taming the mind alike never leave this consciousness. So before a single 「即非」(is precisely not) has been spoken, before one word of the three natures, the opening question has already fixed the theme of the whole sūtra: what must be broken is the deluded grasping upon this mind; what must be turned is this defiled, scattered consciousness, turned into the pure and non-discriminating—which is exactly the destination that the later 「應無所住而生其心」(let the mind arise while abiding nowhere) answers, the destination Yogācāra calls the transformation of the basis (轉依, āśraya-parāvṛtti). Lifting Subhūti's question with a word of praise, the Buddha points straight in with a single question; the very opening through which all grasping is to be broken lies hidden right here, inside this one request.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 2 · Subhūti's Request · essence · Spring 2026

The true artery of the Great Vehicle begins with a single thought of rousing the mind. Before the Buddha teaches giving, before he speaks of prajñā, he first answers Subhūti's 「云何降伏其心」(how should one subdue the mind)—he teaches one how to set the mind straight. And how is it set straight? By taking up the whole burden of all living beings: born from egg, womb, moisture, or transformation, with form or without, with perception or without—across the four modes of birth and through the three realms, not one of them lies outside what is to be delivered, 「我皆令入無餘涅槃而滅度之」(I cause them all to enter complete nirvāṇa and so deliver them). And then the words suddenly turn: though beings beyond measure, number, and bound have been delivered, in truth 「實無眾生得滅度者」(there is in truth no being who is delivered). What matters is that what is overturned is not "there are beings to deliver," but that layer of deluded grasping—"there is a real self here, delivering a real being." So the Buddha sets out the sūtra's first 「即非」(is precisely not): if there still lingers in the mind a mark of self, mark of person, mark of being, mark of life-span, one is no bodhisattva. Seen with the Yogācāra eye, these four marks are exactly the wholly-imagined (遍計所執, parikalpita) that grasps the five aggregates as a real self; clear them away, and the self that delivers and the being delivered both fall—this is the threshold of the gate of "emptiness of self" (我空). The greatness of the rousing and the marklessness of prajñā are, from the start, one single thing: to deliver all beings, yet see no self delivering any being. The one who shoulders everything and yet grasps nothing at all is the true bodhisattva.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 3 · The True Doctrine of the Great Vehicle · essence · Spring 2026

The previous division broke the "self"; this one teaches the "practice"—let the mind rest upon nothing whatever, and give in just this way. Do not lean on form, do not lean on sound, scent, taste, touch, or mental objects; and do not halt at those three places—"I who give, the one who receives, the thing that can be given." The world always supposes that to give much you must first grip tight; the Buddha says the reverse: precisely because it leans on no single place, the merit becomes like the empty space of the ten directions, which no measure can ever exhaust. The moment the mind loosens that clinging to "something real to be gained," giving is no longer a transaction that buys something in return, but a flowing-forth done with no aim of doing—and just so it has no end. What matters most is the closing turn: Subhūti asked 「心該安住在哪裡」(where should the mind abide), and after a whole stretch of words the Buddha's answer is—abide right in 「無所住」(abiding nowhere). So it turns out that "abiding" is not finding some new place to set the mind down, but no longer sticking to any place at all; this non-leaning is the very first move that turns the old habit of clinging to things-as-real into the pure ground that grasps nothing as real. Apart from all marks—and therefore the merit grows ever wider.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 4 · Wondrous Practice Without Abiding · essence · Spring 2026

We always want to see the Buddha—to see the thirty-two marks, to see the golden body in its splendor, supposing that once we have glimpsed that adorned physical form we have seen the Tathāgata. In this division the Buddha gently presses that notion down: 「可以身相見如來不？」(Can the Tathāgata be seen by his bodily marks?) No. The bodily marks the Tathāgata speaks of are, in their very substance, precisely not bodily marks; that physical body which is born, abides, and perishes was never the markless Dharma-body. So far this is only negation; but then the Buddha abruptly turns it over and speaks the eye of the whole sūtra's breaking of marks—「凡所有相，皆是虛妄；若見諸相非相，則見如來」(Whatever has marks is all unreal; if one sees that all marks are no-marks, then one sees the Tathāgata). It turns out he is not telling you to make the marks vanish and look elsewhere for some markless thing; he is telling you to see, right upon these very marks, that they were never the real, graspable mark you took them to be. See through that one layer of "real" wrongly laid on top, and marks are still marks—yet the Tathāgata is already within them. What matters is this single reversal: the very unreality of a mark is the very reality of the Dharma-body; without leaving the mark before your eyes, see right on this mark that it is no-mark—and you see the Tathāgata.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 5 · Seeing Truly, According to Principle · essence · Spring 2026

Subhūti voices the unspoken worry of people in ages to come: a teaching of marklessness this deep—once the Tathāgata has passed into cessation, in that final five hundred years of decline, will there still be anyone who hears it and truly believes? The Buddha first says 「莫作是說」(Do not speak so), then turns it over and says: there will—there will be those who keep the precepts and cultivate merit, who have planted roots of goodness with measureless buddhas; should even a single thought of pure faith arise in them, the Tathāgata sees it. What matters is that this faith is no blind faith, but a measure of wisdom that arises in accord with marklessness: in the one who has such faith, the four marks of 「我、人、眾生、壽者」(self, person, being, life-span) are already gone from the mind, and he no longer grasps the mark of "there is a dharma," nor even the mark of "there is no dharma." 「無法相，亦無非法相」(no mark of dharma, and also no mark of no-dharma)—this one line clears both extremes: to grasp dharmas as real is to take the reflections cast by the mind for things lying outside it; to dismiss the real as sheer nothing is to fall to the other side. With both extremes set down, the Middle Way at last appears. The Buddha closes with a simile: the Dharma I teach is like a raft for crossing the river—once you reach the far shore even the raft is to be let go, how much more whatever is not the Dharma at all. So it turns out that even the Dharma most worth believing, most worth holding, is there to ferry you across, not for you to clutch the raft and refuse to step ashore. No wonder the Buddha calls one who can give rise to faith amid such words 「希有」(rare).

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 6 · Right Faith Is Rare · essence · Spring 2026

The Buddha suddenly puts a pair of questions in return: has the Tathāgata really attained "awakening" (bodhi)? Has he really taught any "Dharma"? Subhūti answers cleanly—there is no fixed dharma that can be attained, and no fixed dharma that can be taught. This does not say there is no awakening, no teaching; it says that that awakening, that teaching, was never a thing one could hold in the hand or lay upon the tongue. What matters is the line 「非法、非非法」(not dharma, not no-dharma): to call it a really existent dharma is wrong—that is the ordinary person taking the reflection within the mind for a real object outside it; to call it nothing at all is also wrong, for once deluded grasping is cleared away, that ineffable suchness (真如, tathatā) plainly remains. This very figure now teaching the Dharma is a manifested, transformational form, not the markless, attainless, speechless Dharma-body itself—and so 「應化非真佛，亦非說法者」(the manifested form is not the real Buddha, nor the one who teaches the Dharma). Yet the deepest turn is the closing line: all the noble and the wise are distinguished in rank by this uncontrived unconditioned (無為, asaṃskṛta)—the place of "nothing attained" is no pitch-black void, but precisely the place where the noble and wise, by non-discriminating wisdom, intimately realize suchness, each to a different depth. "Nothing attained" is the attainment apart from "attainer and attained"; "nothing taught" is the teaching apart from grasping marks and verbal description. Negation pressed to its very end, yet not falling into annihilation: that place where not one dharma can be held is exactly when suchness comes forth and the noble and wise take their grades.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 7 · Nothing Attained, Nothing Taught · essence · Spring 2026

The Buddha first piles merit to its peak: the seven treasures filling a great-thousandfold world, all given away in charity—is that merit great? Greatly so. Yet the words have barely landed when the Buddha gently turns them over—there is another who merely holds to the four-line verse within this sūtra and explains it to others, and his merit is greater still. The comparison drawn here is not to weigh which of two goods is the larger, but to use those weighable, measurable treasures to throw into relief one immeasurable thing: merit can be heaped up, yet it cannot advance toward awakening; only by grasping, only by transmitting this dharma of "nothing attained" does one truly walk toward awakening. And so the Buddha says that all the buddhas, and all the dharmas of awakening, are born from this sūtra—while what is called 「佛法」(buddha-dharma) is, in that very moment, precisely not buddha-dharma. "Nothing attained" is exactly the place of being born; the Dharma-body was there all along—this sūtra does not manufacture it, but shines it into view, as a lamp lights up a thing, the thing not being born of the lamp. What matters is to see clearly: however high the merit is heaped, it is only the foil; what is truly born from here is the prajñā in which not one dharma can be grasped, yet from which every buddha can be born.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 8 · Born of the Dharma · essence · Spring 2026

From the stream-enterer (srotāpanna) up to the arhat, the Buddha questions the four fruits one by one, and the question is always the same: can such a one give rise to the thought, "I have attained this fruit"? And the answer is always the same—「不也」(no). To enter the stream is in truth to enter nothing; the once-returner in truth comes and goes nowhere; and at the stage of arhat, there is said to be not even a dharma that can be named—the fruit's name is only a designation set up to suit conditions, and behind the name there is no real "fruit" to be attained. What matters is that one thought: the instant "I have realized it" arises, one has already fallen back into the grasping of 「我、人、眾生、壽者」(self, person, being, life-span)—and the ancient masters say this is the subtlest layer of conceit, called the "conceit of attainment" (我得慢). So although the Buddha calls Subhūti foremost in non-contention and foremost in freedom from desire, Subhūti himself will not harbor the thought "I am an arhat free of desire"; precisely because 「實無所行」(in truth there is nothing practiced) can he be called one who delights in the practice of quietude. The further realization of the fruit reaches its utmost, the more the thought of "I attain, I practice" turns out to have nothing to grasp. Realization was never about "what has been attained"; realization lies exactly where not one dharma can be attained, and no "attainer" can be set up at all.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 9 · One Mark, No Mark · essence · Spring 2026

We habitually imagine the Pure Land as a fine place somewhere far off, built of the seven jewels, waiting for us to reach it once our practice is ripe. This division turns that idea gently over. The adorning of a buddha-land of which it speaks is not some real, substantial adornment that can be carried out; it is only called "adornment" by borrowing the name—the true Pure Land lies in no outward form, but in a mind that is pure: when the mind is pure, the buddha-land is pure. The Buddha then teaches the single most pivotal line of the whole sūtra: 「應無所住而生其心」(One should give rise to the mind while abiding nowhere). This is not emptying the mind out and thinking of nothing; it is raising up this very mind while not letting it stick fast to form, sound, scent, taste, touch, or mental objects. Something is genuinely turned here: the grasping that clings to outer objects and takes them as real is let go, and the mind arises instead in dependence on non-discrimination. At the close, the Buddha gives the image of a body vast as Sumeru, king of mountains, and says of it 「非身，是名大身」(it is not a body—that is what is called a great body): the mountain-king towers in height and power yet never gives rise to a single thought that says "I am the mountain-king," because it is mindless; the Buddha is replete with the virtue of a Dharma-king yet never takes up of himself "I am the Dharma-king," because he is free of discrimination. The point is that none of this teaches us to negate, to wipe away everything good—the Pure Land still stands, the great body is still great; only that one layer of "real existence" is not grasped. To adorn yet not grasp the adornment, to raise the mind yet not lodge it in any one place, to be vast yet not set oneself up as great: abiding nowhere, it turns out, is not the absence of anything, but having-while-free.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 10 · Adorning the Pure Land · essence · Spring 2026

Here the Buddha runs an account so vast it has no edge: the grains of sand in a single Ganges already cannot be counted; now take each grain to be one whole Ganges, and the sands of all those Ganges rivers to be that many three-thousand-fold great-thousand world-systems—fill them with the seven jewels, and give the whole as a gift. Give on such a scale, and the merit is of course immense. Yet the Buddha says this merit still does not match the merit of one who receives and keeps even a four-line verse and explains it to others. What matters is not which side is the "greater"; it is that the two kinds of merit differ in their very nature. The merit of giving wealth has measure, can be heaped up, and is in the end exhaustible; it benefits only the body of form. The merit of upholding the sūtra has the unconditioned (無為, asaṃskṛta) prajñā for its substance; precisely because it grasps no real merit-mark, it is instead boundless—and it can shoulder unsurpassed bodhi. The larger the gift of things is reckoned to be, the more it shows itself to be a "having that has measure"; the brevity of four lines points exactly toward that uncountable "nothing attained." Merit is not a thing that grows thicker the more you hoard it; the less you treat it as a solid merit you can hold in your hand, the less it is hemmed in. That a sum reckoned to its furthest still loses to a single verse at its barest is just what this sūtra would have you see: true surpassing in merit surpasses by way of nothing attained.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 11 · The Unconditioned Surpasses in Merit · essence · Spring 2026

The previous division was still weighing the amount of merit—taking the seven jewels heaped to fill a great-thousand world-system, given as a gift, and finding it still no match for explaining four lines of verse to others. In this division the Buddha gives up weighing altogether and simply praises two things: the place where the sūtra is, is to be revered; and the person who receives and keeps the sūtra is to be revered. Wherever, in any place at all, someone explains this sūtra, even down to a single four-line verse, that place should be honored with offerings as a buddha-stūpa or shrine; how much more so when someone is able to receive, keep, read, and recite it entire—such a one is like a disciple of the Buddha, and that place is as though a buddha were present. But here is what matters: what is revered is not this one scroll of paper and ink. The ancient masters say it plainly: what a relic-stūpa enshrines is only the body of a single transformation-body buddha; whereas this prajñā enshrines the true Dharma-body of all the buddhas of the ten directions—not something that is produced, but the originally-present suchness which the sūtra reveals and makes manifest. So once the sūtra is present, the Dharma-body is present; and where the Dharma-body is, there 「則為有佛」(there is then a buddha present). Worldly people most revere the visible buddha-stūpa, and that reverence is borrowed here to illumine the worth of the place where the sūtra is—a stroke that uses the shallow to throw light on the deep, not a treating of the sūtra as a holy object for worship. The reason the sūtra is revered is that it shares one and the same root with the realization of all the buddhas—it is the outflow (等流, niṣyanda) of the very Dharma the buddhas personally realized. That a single place of paper and ink should rank as precious as the true body of the buddhas of the ten directions—this is the full weight of those four words, "revering the true teaching."

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 12 · Revering the True Teaching · essence · Spring 2026

Subhūti asks: what should this sūtra be named, and how are we to uphold it? The Buddha sets up a name—「金剛般若波羅蜜」(Vajra-prajñā-pāramitā, the Diamond Perfection of Wisdom)—and tells them to uphold it by just this name; yet no sooner is the name settled than he sweeps it aside with the same motion: 「佛說般若波羅蜜，即非般若波羅蜜」(what the Buddha calls prajñā-pāramitā is not prajñā-pāramitā). To set up the name is at once to dismiss the name. Then, strung like beads, come the rest: dust-motes are not dust-motes, the world is not the world, the thirty-two marks are precisely no-marks—to raise the mark is at once to dismiss the mark. Within a single passage, this "is, yet is not" (即非) fires off four times, the densest such stretch in the whole first half of the sūtra. And what matters is that this concentrated dismissing is itself the answer to "how should it be upheld?" To receive and keep the Dharma as it is means to keep it according to its own is-yet-is-not law—not taking the name for the real thing the name points to, not taking the mark for a dharma lying beyond the mark. We are used to seizing a name the moment we are handed one, and to supposing, the moment we see the auspicious marks, that we have seen the Tathāgata; but the Buddha, in the very breath that names this sūtra, first teaches you not to gather up this name and this mark into one more graspable thing. The name is still set up, the marks are still spoken of; only that layer of "as said, so real" is dismissed on the spot. Dismissed, yet not fallen into nothing—「是名般若波羅蜜」(that is what is called prajñā-pāramitā), that is what is called a dust-mote, that is what is called the thirty-two marks. To uphold this sūtra is to uphold just this passage of "set up and at once dismissed."

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 13 · Receiving and Keeping the Dharma As It Is · essence · Spring 2026

Hearing this division, Subhūti at last weeps—understanding its meaning deeply, he sheds tears and grieves. The earlier strings of "is, yet is not" no longer remain mere breaking of marks in theory; here they come down to one most concrete, most difficult thing: how, in fact, is one to depart from marks? The Buddha gives no abstruse doctrine—he speaks of himself. Long ago, when King Kaliṅga cut his body apart piece by piece, severing him joint from joint, there was within his mind no "self" (我相), no "person" (人相), no "sentient being" (眾生相), no "life-span" (壽者相)—had there still been a "self being cut" present, anger and hatred would surely have arisen, yet they did not. Where does anger arise from? From "there being a self." If the self-mark is empty, then who is there to be angered? So patient endurance is not gritted-teeth forbearance—that is still a patience with a self in it; true patience is to see clearly that there is no self undergoing the pain at all, and so the pain has nowhere to land. In the language of Yogācāra, this is precisely to dismiss, to the very end, that layer of deluded clinging to "a real existence outside the mind"—and once it is dismissed entire, deluded thought and birth-and-death are likewise exhausted, and what is thereby revealed is just the buddhas: 「離一切諸相則名諸佛」(to depart from all marks is what is called the buddhas). After departing from marks there is not a blank emptiness, but suchness present before one, the Dharma-body standing plain; the place of nothing-attained is exactly the most replete. If the mind abides in marks, it is like walking into a dark room and seeing nothing; if the mind does not abide, it is like opening the eyes and meeting daylight as well, where every kind of form stands all at once bright and clear. To depart from marks was never to shut the world off, but to lift away that one layer of covering and let the light shine in.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 14 · Beyond Marks, the Peace of Cessation · essence · Spring 2026

In this division the Buddha lays out a comparison almost beyond human reach: a person who, in the morning, midday, and evening of a single day, gives away in each of the three periods as many bodies and lives as the sands of the Ganges, and goes on giving up his body like this through measureless hundreds of thousands of millions of eons—giving that is at once hard, and vast, and long-sustained. Yet another person merely hears this sūtra and, with a faith that does not turn against it, gains merit that surpasses his. What is weighed is not the amount, but the very nature of the two kinds of merit. However great the giving of one's body, it remains a merit of something-attained, turning round within birth-and-death, set off by one layer from bodhi; whereas hearing, receiving, and keeping this sūtra perfumes into the ground of the mind a seed inclined toward the fruit of buddhahood, and takes the first step out along the road toward transformation of the basis (轉依, āśraya-parāvṛtti). And so the Buddha says that the one able to receive, keep, read, recite, and explain it for others 「則為荷擔如來阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」(shoulders the Tathāgata's unsurpassed, perfect, complete awakening)—taking up on his own shoulders the whole heavy burden of becoming a buddha. This is the point: the true cause of buddhahood lies not in how much you have given out, but in the direction in which you take up the burden. The merit of giving the body will be used up; the one who shoulders the burden does not fall away for a thousand ages, because what he shoulders is not one item of merit but bodhi itself. The place where the sūtra is becomes like a stūpa, and gods and humans alike come to pay reverence—not for the paper and ink, but for the Dharma that this single shoulder takes up.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 15 · The Merit of Upholding the Sūtra · essence · Spring 2026

By rights, one who upholds this sūtra should gain boundless merit; yet this division says of him that he is 「為人輕賤」(despised by others)—looked down on, met with insult and slander. The Buddha says this is not a sign that upholding the sūtra is of no use; on the contrary, it is the very power of upholding the sūtra at work. This person, who by his grave transgressions in former lives ought to fall into the evil destinies, now, by the power of prajñā, has that grave karma which would have plunged him into the lower realms turned instead into a single bout of contempt to be undergone in this present life—and the grave transgression is thereby dissolved. The ancient masters call this 「轉重令輕」(turning the heavy into the light). Kuiji reads it a layer deeper: a sin is never an account set down outside the body; it is committed through delusion, through that discrimination which splits the mind falsely into a grasper and a grasped—「罪從心生」(sin arises from the mind). And since it arises from the mind, once wisdom rises and that discrimination is cut, it likewise 「還從心滅」(is extinguished back into the mind). So purifying karmic hindrances is not striking sins off, one by one, somewhere outside; it is that once the deluded clinging which can produce sin is dismissed entire, the karmic hindrance is of itself purified. This is the line that matters: the very sins you suppose you must spend all your strength to dissolve are rooted, every one, in this present mind; once the mind is turned, the sins have nowhere left to lodge. And how great is the merit of upholding the sūtra? The Buddha says it is so great that 「具說則人聞狂亂」(were it told in full, hearers would fall into wild confusion)—not that this merit is fearsome, but that the small measuring-rod of ordinary feeling cannot take the measure of a measureless fruit.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 16 · The Power to Purify Karmic Hindrances · essence · Spring 2026

At the opening of the sūtra, Subhūti had asked 「云何應住、云何降伏其心」(How should one abide? How should one subdue the mind?); at this division, he asks the very same words again, not a character changed. The Buddha's reply too seems to repeat—to deliver all sentient beings while no sentient being is in reality delivered, and that one who holds the four marks is no bodhisattva. Yet the ancient masters say this is the seam of the whole sūtra: it is one and the same question, but the first time, what was purified was "I am delivering sentient beings"; what must be purified the second time is "I am a bodhisattva who walks the bodhisattva path and understands marklessness." So the emptying drives back from the sentient beings that are delivered to the mind that can give rise to the vow, to the dharma that can be practiced, and at last to the very title "bodhisattva" itself—until even 「實無有法名為菩薩」(there is in reality no dharma named "bodhisattva") is spoken aloud. Here the teaching turns a corner: from the selflessness of persons (人無我) it passes into the selflessness of dharmas (法無我); from breaking the hindrance of the afflictions (煩惱障) it turns toward breaking the hindrance to the knowable (所知障). And the true bodhisattva is not one who has done away with some particular grasping, but one who has penetrated both these selflessnesses and can still carry out his great vow right where there is nothing whatsoever to attain. 「如來者，即諸法如義」(The Tathāgata is the suchness of all dharmas)—the very place where no single dharma can be attained is the very moment suchness stands present before one.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 17 · Ultimately, No Self · essence · Spring 2026

We always assume that the thoughts inside the mind are solid, real things — this present thought, surely, is plainly here. In this division the Buddha first declares that He possesses the five eyes and knows in full the manifold minds of every being throughout worlds numberless as the sands of the Ganges, stressing to the utmost that nothing escapes His sight; and then, in a single turn, He says that all these minds He knows are 「皆為非心」(all of them no-mind). The ancient masters explain: the Buddha's all-knowing is precisely the seeing-through of this whole field of mind as upside-down and empty of substance — it runs on thought after thought, seeming to exist, yet not for a single instant possessing a real self-nature. How is this shown? Search for it across the three times: the past mind has already perished, the future mind is not yet born, the present mind is in its very substance unreal — search in all three places and it is utterly ungraspable. And yet you insist on feeling that "there is a mind here." That feeling of "there being" one is exactly the delusion; that which, when sought, "cannot be grasped" is exactly the real. Mind is not cut off into nothing — it is only without self-nature, arising in accord with conditions; and just because it has no self-nature, it is born and reborn without end.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 18 · Seeing All as One Body · essence · Spring 2026

The previous division had just said that the very mind in beings that can create merit is, at bottom, upside-down and empty, unreal in its own substance. From this a doubt springs up: if the mind that makes merit is itself inverted, must not the merit it produces be inverted along with it? The Buddha's answer is unexpected — take the seven jewels enough to fill a great-thousandfold world-system and give them all away in charity, and the merit so gained is very great; and yet 「若福德有實，如來不說得福德多；以福德無故，如來說得福德多」(if merit had real substance, the Tathāgata would not say the merit gained is great; it is because merit is without substance that the Tathāgata says the merit gained is great). Were merit to truly possess a real self-nature, it would on the contrary not count as great; it is precisely because it is without substance that it is called great. What matters is that this line hides a key: the mind is inverted, yet the merit is not — and the merit is uninverted not because the giver's mind is clean or unclean, but because the merit is without real self-nature and is held by the wisdom of right awakening. To cling to marks and grasp merit as real is the giving of "attainment" (有得), falling into the duality of grasper and grasped; to see the three factors — giver, gift, receiver — as empty in substance and not grasp the merit as real is the giving of "no-attainment" (無得), and the merit then becomes a cause of buddhahood. This very reversal is the transformation of the basis (轉依) by which "the giving of attainment" is converted into "the giving of no-attainment" — strip away that layer which clings to "merit is a real dharma" (and this is the clinging-to-dharmas, dharma-grāha, no longer the clinging-to-self of "I am making merit"), and merit changes from a measurable thing into a freedom of merit (福自在) that can be given out inexhaustibly. And so merit is great not because much is piled up, but because it is not grasped as real.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 19 · The Dharma-Realm Pervasively Transformed · essence · Spring 2026

People always want to recognize the Buddha by some visible mark — the thirty-two marks in their splendor, the eighty secondary excellences in their fullness — as though to see this body of marks and excellences were to see the Buddha. This division gently brushes the notion aside: can the Buddha be seen by the perfected form-body? No. Can the Tathāgata be seen by the perfected marks? No. The Buddha sets the two questions side by side, and each closes with an "is-not" (即非) — the perfected form-body is not the perfected form-body, the perfected marks are not the perfected marks. What matters is that this "is-not" does not say the Buddha lacks marks and excellences; it says that the body of marks and excellences is not the Dharma-body (法身): those visible secondary excellences and the thirty-two marks are the marks displayed by the reward-body (報身) and transformation-body (化身) as they arise from conditions — they are not the formless, markless substance of the Dharma-nature. Yet neither are they apart from the Dharma-body — the Dharma-body, like empty space, is from the first without form or mark, and yet within the wisdom of the great perfect mirror (大圓鏡智) it can display the manifold marks and excellences of the reward-body and transformation-body; the marks that have form are displayed precisely from that mark which is without form. And so Vasubandhu says in one phrase 「亦無二及有」(neither two, nor [merely] existent): within the Dharma-body there are no marks and excellences, and so we say "is-not"; the marks and excellences are not apart from the Dharma-body, and so we say "is named." Not one, not different — and just so the body of marks and the Dharma-body come to rest. To see the Tathāgata lies not in halting at that one visible body of marks and excellences, but, right at the marks and excellences, in neither grasping them as real nor dismissing them as nothing — recognizing, upon form and mark, the Dharma-body that is apart from form and apart from marks.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 20 · Apart from Form, Apart from Marks · essence · Spring 2026

All along, the "is-not" (即非) has been clearing away mostly the body and its marks, merit, adornment; in this division the blade of the "is-not" turns and falls upon the teaching of Dharma itself. The Buddha first warns Subhūti not to suppose that within the Tathāgata's mind there could arise the thought "I ought to have a Dharma to teach" — if anyone says the Tathāgata has a Dharma that He teaches, that is to slander the Buddha; and then He closes with a line: 「說法者，無法可說，是名說法」(as for one who teaches the Dharma, there is no Dharma that can be taught — this is named teaching the Dharma). Speaking, yet "is-not" speaking; not teaching, and yet teaching fills the whole world — Zhiyi pierces it in a phrase: it is not closing the mouth and saying nothing, but teaching without holding to any real dharma, and so He teaches throughout the world without fault. What matters is that this "is-not" has now turned from the "mark of self" onto "dharmas": the first half broke the afflictive obstruction (煩惱障) of grasping the body as a self; here it breaks the obstruction to the knowable (所知障), which grasps even "the Buddha teaches Dharma" and "the beings who can have faith" as really existent. So when Subhūti asks whether in a future age there will yet be beings who, hearing this, give rise to faith, the Buddha answers with a double negation as well: 「彼非眾生，非不眾生」(they are not beings, nor are they not beings) — those who can have faith in this Dharma are no longer ordinary folk who grasp at real existence, yet neither have they perfectly awakened; they stand right between the ordinary and the sage. And at the last He closes with one more line, 「眾生即非眾生，是名眾生」(beings are not beings — this is named beings): even the very designation "beings" is without substance, conventionally set up. There is no single dharma that can be taught, and yet teaching is vivid; there is no single being that can be grasped, and yet liberation is vivid — and this is the teaching that is no teaching, the beings who are no beings.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 21 · The Speaking That Is No Speaking · essence · Spring 2026

Having broken its way through the whole sūtra to this point, Subhūti asks the most direct question of all: is it that the unsurpassed awakening the Buddha accomplished is in fact nothing attained? And the Buddha confirms it without reservation — 「如是，如是！我於阿耨多羅三藐三菩提乃至無有少法可得，是名阿耨多羅三藐三菩提」(So it is, so it is! In anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi there is not even the slightest dharma that can be attained — this is named anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi). There is not so much as a sliver of a dharma to be taken in hand, and only this is called bodhi. What was broken earlier was the clinging that takes outer objects and beings as real; this line turns the blade back and lets it fall upon "bodhi" itself: it turns out that even the most venerable of all, that right awakening, is not a thing that can be realized or attained. What matters is that this "no-attainment" does not collapse into emptiness — what is cleared away is only the false reckoning that "there is a real dharma to be attained"; clear that away entirely, and the suchness-bodhi in which no real dharma can be attained stands, on the contrary, vividly present. The very place where not one thing can be attained is the very moment when suchness is laid bare; what is called "attaining" was never the seizing of anything, but the laying down of that last thought which "supposes there is something attained."

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 22 · No Dharma Can Be Attained · essence · Spring 2026

The previous division had just finished saying that "in bodhi there is not one dharma that can be attained," and this one follows with the line 「是法平等，無有高下」(this Dharma is level and equal, with nothing higher and nothing lower) — no-attainment is not a falling into emptiness, but the standing there of a Dharma-position level and without high or low: that is suchness (真如), of itself neither increasing nor decreasing. Most moving is the reversal that follows: the Buddha first exhausts the list — 「無我、無人、無眾生、無壽者」(no self, no person, no being, no life-span) — clearing away, layer by layer, the very subject that could practice and could attain; and no sooner has the phrase fallen than it is abruptly joined by 「修一切善法，則得菩提」(practice all good dharmas, and one attains bodhi) — there is, after all, still practice, and still attainment. Emptiness and existence meet face to face right within this one passage. The ancient masters put this layer through and through: self and person are empty, and so one must clear away the deluded mind that grasps them as real; yet good conduct exists, and so one must hold fast to this good dharma — clearing the false while keeping the good, watching over the two faces of emptiness and existence together, and just this is the middle way (中道). Even that "good dharma" is said to be 「即非善法」(is-not a good dharma): what is cleared away is only the layer that takes good as having a real self-nature, while the truly outflow-free (無漏) good conduct stands, on the contrary, vividly there to be practiced. What matters is this: no-self does not mean one should do nothing at all; it is precisely because there is no self that the good one practices is not stained by even the shadow of "I am doing good." Upon the most thoroughgoing "nothing attained," one can still, solidly and concretely, practice every good — and this is a pure mind practicing good.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 23 · A Pure Mind Practicing Good · essence · Spring 2026

The Buddha first heaps up a mound of merit as great as great can be: take all the Sumeru mountain-kings in the great-thousandfold world-system, and seven jewels in a measure equal to that many mountain-kings, and give it all away in charity. The mountain is the largest of the ten-jewel mountains, and the merit too is piled to its very peak. No sooner is this said than the Buddha gives it a light turn — there is another who only takes the four-line verse of this sūtra and explains it for others, and that mountain-vast merit, set beside the merit of upholding the sūtra, 「百分不及一」(does not come to one part in a hundred), and reckon it by every count and liken it by every figure, and still it falls short. The greater the mountain, the more it serves only as foil; the more merit is heaped up, the more it sets off how incomparable the upholding of the sūtra is. What matters is that this is not a contest over which side has more merit. The merit of the seven jewels can be weighed and measured, and so however much there is it has an end; the merit of upholding the sūtra can bear up bodhi and simply does not stand in the order of "the measurable" at all. The ancients once doubted: the letters and phrases in the sūtra are a karmically-neutral (無記) dharma — how can they accomplish buddhahood? And the Buddha's intent lies just here — that one line of sūtra which can set forth the real is precisely the cause of bodhi. On the one side is conditioned (有為) merit, that one may cart off load by load yet that can never in the end carry one out of birth-and-death; on the other is the jewel of a single Dharma, formless and markless, yet able to ferry one to the far shore. Weighed to the very end, what is weighed out is not how much merit there is, but that merit and wisdom cannot be spoken of in the same breath.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 24 · Merit and Wisdom Beyond Compare · essence · Spring 2026

In this division the Buddha says something startling: do not suppose that within the Tathāgata's mind there has ever arisen the thought "I will liberate beings" — in truth, there is not one being who is liberated by the Tathāgata. Yet the Tathāgata has plainly liberated beings beyond measure; how can it be said that "not one being can be liberated"? What matters is this turn: were the Tathāgata truly to hold the view that "there are real beings liberated by Me," He would fall right back into "self, person, being, life-span" (我、人、眾生、壽者), the very same fault as the ordinary person's grasping at a real self. Liberating is a liberating that follows convention, a borrowed name; no-liberating is the level equality of the Dharma-realm, in which there was never a "Buddha who liberates and beings who are liberated" set against each other as high and low. And so the Tathāgata's saying that "there is a self" is likewise only a conventional, provisional saying, not that there truly is a self; saying "ordinary person" is likewise only a borrowed name, not that there truly is a fixed ordinary person — and it is precisely because the ordinary person is not a real entity that he can be turned about and transformed into a Buddha. Transforming with nothing transformed: the guiding and transforming is vivid, yet grasper and grasped are both at rest; beings are liberated to the very last, yet not one being is really liberated into cessation — and this liberating that is no liberating is the level, true Dharma-realm laid bare once the latent habit of grasping a self and grasping real beings has been turned away and cast off clean.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 25 · Transforming with Nothing Transformed · essence · Spring 2026

We always assume that if we look inward by tracing the Buddha's adorned marks and excellent features, we will surely catch sight of his true body. But the Buddha turns the assumption back on itself with a single question that scatters it: if the thirty-two marks alone were enough to behold the Tathāgata, then a wheel-turning sage-king (轉輪聖王), who likewise possesses all thirty-two marks, would have to count as a Buddha too. The marks and features are a form-body called forth by merit, a reflection appearing when conditions gather — kings share them in common, and they are precisely not that essence by which a Buddha is a Buddha. And so the World-Honored One speaks that decisive, cutting verse: 「若以色見我，以音聲求我，是人行邪道，不能見如來」(If anyone sees me through form, or seeks me through sound, that person walks a deviant path and cannot behold the Tathāgata). Form can be seen, sound can be heard; both are objects grasped by this discriminating, outward-reaching mind. But the Dharma-body is exactly not a thing this mind can reach for — it is not in the marks before the eye, not in the sound at the ear; only that wisdom which no longer grasps outward but turns back to verify itself can illumine it. So to negate form and sound is not to push the Buddha further away; it is to seal off the road of outward searching, so that one may turn around and face inward: the very place where the Buddha of marks and features is not seen is the place where the Dharma-body stands present. What matters is not to make offerings to one more, even more adorned, image, but to be willing to put down even this last thought of "beholding the Buddha by following his marks."

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 26 · The Dharma-Body Is Not a Form · essence · Spring 2026

Listen to the word "emptiness" (空) long enough and it quietly turns into another kind of clinging — the assumption that marks and features, merit, fruition, and all dharmas may as well be reduced, once and for all, to sheer nothingness. In this division the Buddha twice lays down the warning 「莫作是念」(Do not give rise to this thought), precisely to block that turn: do not strike the marks and features away into a blank void, and do not hear "giving rise to bodhi" as "preaching that all dharmas are cut off and annihilated." He then fixes the point in a single line: 「於法不說斷滅相」(Regarding dharmas, one does not preach a mark of being cut off and annihilated). What matters is that this "not preaching annihilation" is not a retreat into clinging to dharmas as truly existent — the dependently-arisen functions of merit and fruition remain perfectly intact, just as they should; all that is to be dispelled is that overlay of "grasping them as real." A single negation cuts both edges: neither cling to them as real, nor strike them away as nothing; not eternalist, and not annihilationist either. The three differing streams among the ancient masters all converge here on one Middle Way. The bodhisattva realizes the forbearance of the non-arising of dharmas (無生法忍, anutpattika-dharma-kṣānti) and yet his merit is not cut off; he is empty all the way through and yet does not hide away in quiescent extinction — abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa. It turns out that emptiness was never the reducing of everything to zero; it is the leaving-behind of both lopsided extremes, so that the real may stand present just as it is.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 27 · Neither Cut Off nor Annihilated · essence · Spring 2026

Take the seven treasures enough to fill world-systems as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, and give them all away in charity — the merit could hardly be called small; yet the Buddha says it still does not match a single person who 「知一切法無我，得成於忍」(knows that all dharmas are without self, and attains the forbearance thereof). Where lies the difference? The former does great merit while secretly hoping for a fruit of reward; the latter has penetrated both no-selves — of persons and of dharmas — and so, with respect to all dharmas, has nothing left to crave and nothing to attain. When Subhūti hears the Buddha say 「諸菩薩不受福德」(bodhisattvas do not receive merit), he cannot help being startled — does a bodhisattva, then, no longer make merit at all? The Buddha's answer gently lifts away the misunderstanding: the merit a bodhisattva makes is not unmade and not unreceived; it is only that he 「不應貪著」(ought not to crave and cling to it), and that is why it is said he does not receive it. He receives its good, yet does not crave its reward; the merit remains perfectly present, while the hidden thread that would tie it toward a tainted, retributive fruit is severed on the spot. What matters is to see clearly: "not receiving" is not sweeping merit away into emptiness, but dispelling that one overlay of "merit as a real attainment" — just as "attaining forbearance through no-self" is not a teeth-gritting effort to endure, but the natural non-arising that comes of resting where there is no self. Once merit is no longer bound to reward, it no longer falls back into the wandering flow of birth-and-death, but turns instead into provision oriented toward transcendence. This single thought of receiving-yet-not-grasping is just what 「應無所住而生其心」(let the mind arise without abiding anywhere) looks like when it comes to rest upon merit.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 28 · Not Receiving, Not Grasping · essence · Spring 2026

We always assume the Buddha is one who came and then went — born, awakened, teaching, entering extinction: a single set of traces with a beginning and an end. But the Buddha says: if anyone declares that 「如來會來、會去，會坐、會臥」(the Tathāgata comes, or goes, or sits, or lies down), that person has not understood my words. What comes and goes, sits and lies down, is the transformation-body (化身, nirmāṇakāya) that appears in response to the capacities of beings — like the moon's reflection falling into water: when the water is clear it appears, when the water is turbid it hides; the reflection has arising and ceasing, yet the moon itself has never truly come and never truly gone. The Tathāgata's own self — the Dharma-body, suchness (真如, tathatā) — abides constantly thus, unchanging and undiffering, and so it is said 「無所從來，亦無所去」(coming from nowhere, going nowhere as well); it is precisely for this reason that it is called the Tathāgata, the Thus-Come. What matters is that this "coming" and "going" are not a real motion of the Dharma-body, but a reflection summoned by the water of our own mind here on this side — it is not that the Buddha has come before you, but that your mind has manifested the appearance of a Buddha's coming. And so this division draws the blade of "is, yet is not" (即非) all the way back, from the outer object to the Tathāgata's very self: even that Buddha you took to come and go, to sit and lie down, is suchness, silent and unmoving, manifesting deportment in accordance with your mind.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 29 · Deportment Serene and Still · essence · Spring 2026

Grind the whole world to powder, crush it into motes of dust beyond counting — and you suppose you have at last struck something real: these grains, each tiny mote, surely they are true? But the Buddha says, if the motes of dust were truly existent, there would be no need to call them motes of dust at all; 微塵即非微塵，世界即非世界 (motes of dust are, yet are not, motes of dust; a world is, yet is not, a world). Crushed to the point past which nothing can be crushed further, there is no real smallest thing; and the "joined-into-one" mark of composing them into a single world, a single whole, is likewise nothing but a grasping that the ordinary person craves into being — this is what is called the mark of a single composite whole (一合相). And the most intimate composite mark of all is to grasp this body-and-mind, a compound of the five aggregates, as one real "self." What matters is to see: what is crushed is no real mote, what is joined is no real whole, and even the mind that grasps "joined into one" has nowhere to take its stand. The world is like fine powder crushed into motes — to say they dwell together in one place is wrong (each has scattered apart), and to say they dwell separately in different places is wrong too (there was never any real thing to be divided). The Dharma-body of all Buddhas is precisely at this place of "neither one nor many" (非一非異): afflictions exhausted, it abides at peace in the dharma-realm. It is not that beyond the world there is some other reality; it is this very present moment, uncrushable to an end and uncombinable into a whole, that is just so of itself.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 30 · The Mark of a Single Composite Whole · essence · Spring 2026

All through the sūtra the marks have been negated one by one: the mark of self, of person, of being, of a life-span (我相、人相、眾生相、壽者相) — what is negated there is the taking of body-and-mind as a real "self." By this division what is negated has gone one layer deeper: no longer the "mark" that is seen, but the "view" (見) that does the seeing and the grasping. Someone says, "But the Buddha did speak of a view of self (我見)," and so supposes there really is a view of self that can be spoken of, cut off, and attained; the Buddha says, this person has not understood. What is called a view of self seems to have seen a "self," yet it cannot reach any real self at all — in its very substance it is only false discrimination (虛妄分別, abhūta-parikalpa). It is called a "view" precisely because 「即不見」(it is, after all, no-seeing). With even this last layer — the grasping view — negated, the Buddha leaves only one injunction: the one who gives rise to the aspiration should, with respect to all dharmas, 「如是知，如是見，如是信解」(thus know, thus see, thus believe and understand), and 「不生法相」(give rise to no dharma-mark). To give rise to no dharma-mark is not to tell anyone to stop thinking; it means that in the very moment the wisdom of suchness stands present, that overlay of "dharma-mark" — taken to be real and external to the mind — naturally no longer arises. What matters is this: the grasping view and the grasped dharma, these two subtlest layers of clinging, are precisely the subtle hindrance that stands between oneself and Buddhahood. It is not an emptiness pressed out by force; it is what is naturally left behind when calming-and-insight (止觀, śamatha-vipaśyanā) is cultivated to the point where suchness stands present.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 31 · Knowing and Seeing Do Not Arise · essence · Spring 2026

A sūtra that has spoken to the very end of "non-abiding" and "is, yet is not," arriving at its close, leaves behind no earth-shaking conclusion — only a way of looking: 「一切有為法，如夢、幻、泡、影，如露亦如電，應作如是觀」(All conditioned dharmas are like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow, like dew and like lightning too — thus should one contemplate them). Whatever is assembled from conditions, whatever is produced through arising and ceasing, is like a dream, like an illusion, like a bubble on water, like a shadow on a wall, like the dew on the tips of the morning grass, like a flash of lightning at the edge of the sky — this is how one should look at it. What matters is that this does not teach one to look the world empty into nothingness, but to see through its lack of a real self-nature while still granting that it manifestly arises and continues unbroken: the treatise routes the last simile of the verse, "cloud" (雲), straight back to the storehouse-consciousness (藏識, ālaya-vijñāna) that holds the seeds of all dharmas — which is just to say that the conditioned is illusion-like yet not nothing, illusion-like yet with something on which it depends. The one who teaches the Dharma for others in the world is the transformation-body (化身, nirmāṇakāya) the Buddha manifests in response to capacities — teaching yet not grasping any real essence that could be taught, not calling himself a manifestation, his mind abiding unmoved as suchness itself; abiding neither in birth-and-death nor in nirvāṇa, only ceaselessly manifesting into the world to benefit beings. And so the Dharma-body's "thus, thus, unmoving" and the transformation-body's "teaching for others" have never obstructed one another. Here the sūtra finishes its speaking, and the assembly, having heard it, rejoices, believes and accepts, and reverently puts it into practice — to contemplate the conditioned as illusion-like was never the coldness that comes after seeing through, but the willingness, once one has seen clearly, still to carry this sūtra joyfully into practice.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · jingang · Division 32 · Manifestation Is Not the Real · essence · Spring 2026