文殊師利所說摩訶般若波羅蜜經 文殊般若 · 卷上 · 般若甚深

Śāriputra says that the prajñā spoken by Mañjuśrī cannot be known by beginners. Mañjuśrī shifts the question from a person’s level to awakening itself: the nature and mark of awakening are empty and quiescent; there is no dharma that can be known, and no one who realizes or attains it. Śāriputra then asks: did the Buddha not realize awakening within the dharma-realm? Mañjuśrī answers that the World-Honored One is precisely the dharma-realm; to say that the dharma-realm then realizes the dharma-realm would become disputation. The dharma-realm is awakening, and the emptiness of all dharmas is awakening. Without duality there is no discrimination; without discrimination there is no fixed knower or speech. The sūtra next places its most difficult statements about heinous offenses, karmic conditions, grave transgression, and purity within the reality-limit and equality. It permits neither deleting the original sentences nor imposing a separate conclusion upon them. Further on, seeing no slightest dharma arise or cease is called non-retrogressive acceptance of dharmas; when all bonds are exhausted and nothing remains to be tamed, one is called a bhikṣu with nothing left to tame; even at the seat of awakening, there is no slightest dharma of awakening to be realized. The final passage says that awakening and the five heinous acts have no dual mark, and warns that the mind which grasps at realization is conceit-of-attainment. From being unknowable, to being impossible to split in two, to being impossible to seize as an attainment, this chapter does not erase practice. It refuses to let practitioner, realization, and attainment be grasped as substantial things.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · Mañjuśrī Prajñāpāramitā · The Profundity of Prajñā · Heart-Essence · Summer 2026

At that time Śāriputra said to the Buddha, ‘World-Honored One, the prajñā-pāramitā taught by Mañjuśrī cannot be understood by bodhisattvas who are just beginning their training.’

Mañjuśrī said, ‘It is not only beginning bodhisattvas who cannot understand it. Even practitioners of the two vehicles who have completed what they had to do are still unable to understand it. In a teaching such as this, there is no one who can know. Why? Because, as for the mark of awakening, there is in truth no dharma that can be known. It is not attained through seeing or hearing, nor through thought; it neither arises nor ceases and can neither be spoken nor received through listening. In this way the nature and mark of awakening are empty and quiescent. There is no fixed subject who realizes or knows, and no form or appearance. How, then, could there be someone who obtains awakening?’

Śāriputra asked Mañjuśrī, ‘Did the Buddha not realize unsurpassed perfect awakening within the dharma-realm?’

Mañjuśrī answered, ‘No, Śāriputra. Why? Because the World-Honored One is precisely the dharma-realm. If one says that the dharma-realm takes the dharma-realm as something to be realized, this becomes disputation. Śāriputra, the mark of the dharma-realm is precisely awakening. Why? Because within the dharma-realm there is no mark of sentient beings, and all dharmas are empty. The emptiness of all dharmas is precisely awakening: there are not two separate parts, and there is no discrimination.

‘Śāriputra, where there is no discrimination, there is no fixed knower. If there is no knower, there is no speech. Where there is no mark of speech, one cannot say that it exists or does not exist, or that it is knowable or unknowable. All dharmas are likewise. Why? Because no fixed place can be seen within any dharma; this is their determinacy.

‘So too the mark of a heinous offense is inconceivable. Why? Because the real mark of all dharmas cannot be destroyed. Seen in this way, a heinous offense has no fixed and unchanging nature: it is not born in the heavens, does not fall into the hells, and does not enter nirvāṇa. Why? Because all karma and conditions abide in the reality-limit. They neither come nor go and cannot be fixed as cause or effect. Why? Because the dharma-realm has no boundary and no before or after.

‘Therefore, Śāriputra, when seen from this equality, a bhikṣu who has committed a grave offense does not fall into the hells, and one who practices purity does not enter nirvāṇa. Such a bhikṣu cannot be fixed as worthy of offerings or unworthy of offerings, as one whose outflows are exhausted or one whose outflows are not exhausted. Why? Because he abides in equality among all dharmas.’

Śāriputra asked, ‘What is called non-retrogressive acceptance of dharmas?’

Mañjuśrī answered, ‘To see no slightest dharma bearing a mark of arising or ceasing is called non-retrogressive acceptance of dharmas.’

Śāriputra asked again, ‘What, then, is called the bhikṣu with nothing left to tame?’

Mañjuśrī answered, ‘An arhat whose outflows are exhausted is called one with nothing left to tame. Why? Because his various bonds have been exhausted and there is nothing further to tame. Therefore he is called one with nothing left to tame. When one’s mental conduct transgresses, one is called an ordinary being. Why? Because ordinary sentient beings do not accord with the dharma-realm, and therefore are said to transgress.’

Śāriputra said, ‘Excellent, excellent! You have now clearly explained for me the meaning of an arhat whose outflows are exhausted.’

Mañjuśrī said, ‘So it is, so it is! I am precisely a true arhat whose outflows are exhausted. Why? Because I have cut off the desire to seek the śrāvaka vehicle and the pratyekabuddha vehicle. For this reason I am called one whose outflows are exhausted and who has attained arhatship.’

The Buddha asked Mañjuśrī, ‘When bodhisattvas sit at the seat of awakening, do they awaken to unsurpassed perfect awakening?’

Mañjuśrī answered, ‘When bodhisattvas sit at the seat of awakening, there is no unsurpassed perfect awakening to which they awaken. Why? Because, within the mark of awakening, there is no slightest dharma that can be attained. This is what is named unsurpassed perfect awakening. In markless awakening, who is there who can sit? Nor is there anyone who rises from the seat. For this reason one sees no bodhisattva sitting at the seat of awakening and sees no one awakening to or realizing unsurpassed perfect awakening.’

Mañjuśrī then said to the Buddha, ‘World-Honored One, awakening is precisely the five heinous acts, and the five heinous acts are precisely awakening. Why? Because awakening and the five heinous acts do not have two separate marks. There is no fixed non-trainee state and no one who possesses it; no fixed seeing and no seer; no fixed knowing and no knower; no fixed discrimination and no discriminator. Such a mark is called awakening. The mark seen in the five heinous acts is likewise. If someone says that he sees an awakening that can be grasped and realized, know that such a person is one with conceit-of-attainment.’

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · Mañjuśrī Prajñāpāramitā · The Profundity of Prajñā · Vernacular · Summer 2026

Profound Prajñā — Who, Ultimately, Cannot Know It?

Śāriputra first says that the prajñā spoken by Mañjuśrī cannot be understood by beginning bodhisattvas. Mañjuśrī presses the statement one step further: it is not only beginners; even those of the two vehicles whose task has been accomplished are still unable to know it. Why? The question is not who possesses more knowledge, but that within the mark of awakening there is originally no dharma available to be known.

The sūtra sets out several layers of negation in succession: no seeing and no hearing, no attaining and no thinking, no arising and no ceasing, no speaking and no listening. It then says that the nature and mark of awakening are empty and quiescent, with no realization and no knowing, no form and no mark. This does not establish another supremely profound thing waiting to be obtained by the cleverest person. Mañjuśrī’s question is: if even a fixed subject who realizes and knows cannot be found, how could one establish ‘a person who has obtained awakening’?

In the same sense unit, Xuanzang’s recension likewise has Śāriputra say that beginners cannot understand, after which Mañjuśrī says that even arhats and the rest cannot know, and directly states that the nature and mark of awakening are empty and quiescent. The clusters of sentences differ in length, but both lead the reader away from ‘Who is qualified to know?’ and back to ‘Is awakening something that cognition can cognize?’ Their finer doctrinal ranges are recorded without harmonization.

If the Buddha Does Not Realize the Dharma-Realm, Can One Still Speak of Buddhahood?

Śāriputra immediately raises the sharpest question: did the Buddha not realize unsurpassed perfect awakening within the dharma-realm? Mañjuśrī answers: the World-Honored One is precisely the dharma-realm. If one then says that the dharma-realm takes the dharma-realm as what it realizes, this becomes disputation.

This answer does not delete the Buddha or awakening. The sūtra immediately continues: the mark of the dharma-realm is precisely awakening, and the emptiness of all dharmas is precisely awakening. Because there is no duality and no discrimination, there is no knower within discrimination; without a knower, there is no speech. The question proceeds from ‘Does the Buddha realize?’ all the way to ‘Are the realizer and the realized truly two things?’

The Saṅghabhara recension also says that the dharma-realm is precisely awakening and awakening precisely the dharma-realm, and further says that the dharma-realm and a Buddha’s sphere are without difference. This parallel can help show where the two translations place their words, but it does not establish that every term has an entirely equivalent meaning. The actual wording of the two texts is placed side by side, and their agreements and differences are not doctrinally harmonized.

Why Are Heinous Offenses, Karmic Result, and Equality Placed in the Same Passage?

The sentences that follow most easily make a reader stop. From the dharma-realm’s non-discrimination, the sūtra moves to the absence of a fixed nature in heinous offenses. It then says that all karmic conditions abide in the reality-limit, neither coming nor going, neither cause nor result; it goes on to say that a bhikṣu who has committed a grave offense does not fall into the hells and that one who practices purity does not enter nirvāṇa, and finally answers through abiding in equality.

If a single sentence is extracted from the sequence, it is easy to read the passage as a simple judgment reallocating results between transgression and observance. Yet the chapter’s own order does not first redistribute consequences between the two. It first says that the dharma-realm is awakening, that all dharmas are empty, and that there is neither duality nor discrimination. It then says that the real mark of dharmas cannot be destroyed and that the dharma-realm is boundless, with no before or after. Only then does it arrive at the pairing of grave transgression and purity. What the sūtra asks the reader to see is this entire sequence of questions and answers, from the dharma-realm through the reality-limit to equality.

This chapter has no simile of its own that could take away the force of these difficult sentences, nor would it be fitting to invent a comparison merely to make them easy. The most honest reading neither deletes the sensitive sentences nor steps beyond the sūtra to impose a separate judgment: karmic conditions, the reality-limit, and equality are read together according to this chapter’s sequence.

Why Is an Arhat Whose Outflows Are Exhausted Called “One with Nothing Left to Tame”?

Śāriputra next asks about two names. The first is non-retrogressive acceptance of dharmas. Mañjuśrī’s definition is exceedingly short: seeing no slightest dharma bearing a mark of arising or ceasing is called non-retrogressive acceptance of dharmas. The second is the bhikṣu with nothing left to tame. Mañjuśrī says that an arhat whose outflows are exhausted is called one with nothing left to tame — not because he refuses discipline, but because all his bonds are exhausted and nothing remains to be tamed.

This explains through completed practice a term that appears disparaging on its surface. ‘Nothing left to tame’ does not mean a lack of restraint; it means there is nothing further to discipline. By contrast, the ordinary being’s mental conduct transgresses and does not accord with the dharma-realm, and therefore is called at fault. Śāriputra hears this and praises it. Mañjuśrī then describes himself as a true arhat whose outflows are exhausted because he has cut off the desire to seek the śrāvaka and pratyekabuddha vehicles. Here the sūtra turns a cryptic term through its own explanation. The exposition follows only the reason the text itself supplies and adds no judgment about Mañjuśrī’s identity.

Why Is There No Awakening to Realize While Sitting at the Seat of Awakening?

The Buddha finally asks whether bodhisattvas awaken to unsurpassed perfect awakening when sitting at the seat of awakening. Mañjuśrī continues along the line of the preceding exchange about the dharma-realm: within the mark of awakening there is no slightest dharma that can be attained. Therefore, in markless awakening, there is no fixed person who sits and no fixed person who rises; one sees neither a bodhisattva sitting at the seat of awakening nor an awakening being realized.

At this point the chapter advances from its opening question, ‘Who can know?’ to ‘Who can realize?’ If awakening is set up as something that can be taken away and possessed, the opening statement that there is no knower and no speech is forgotten. If the seat of awakening and the bodhisattva are simply deleted, there would have been no need for the sūtra to ask about sitting there. The sūtra preserves the scene of practice in its question and answer, yet does not allow sitter, seat, and attainment to congeal into three fixed entities.

The final passage says that awakening and the five heinous acts have no dual mark, and then speaks one by one of the non-trainee state and the one possessing it, seeing and the seer, knowing and the knower, discrimination and the discriminator. These sensitive sentences are kept within the sequence of the sūtra. The sūtra’s own warning is clear: if one says that one sees an awakening and grasps it for realization, this is conceit-of-attainment. The exposition therefore does not turn the sentence into a new slogan. It places it back within the route of the entire chapter: from awakening as unknowable, to the dharma-realm not realizing the dharma-realm, and then to markless awakening as not graspable for realization.

Onward Transmission

Both the Saṅghabhara recension and Xuanzang’s Seventh Assembly, Mañjuśrī Division, preserve sense units that can be read in parallel with this profound exchange. A beginner’s inability to know, the emptiness and quiescence of awakening’s nature and mark, the identity of the dharma-realm and awakening, and the language of not entering nirvāṇa can all be found in the locally aligned texts. They are first of all witnesses to alternate and later translations preserved within the canon; they are not commentaries that decide the base text.

No verified ancient-master verbatim citation of this unit has presently been found. The known citation network for single-practice samādhi belongs to another chapter in the lower scroll and cannot be moved here to serve as this chapter’s onward transmission. Although the forty-sixth assembly of the Mahāratnakūṭa-sūtra is a transmission witness incorporated as a canonical parallel, the corresponding wording for this unit has not yet been separately extracted word for word. Onward transmission therefore stops here at the verified parallel sūtra texts and does not fabricate a later explanatory chain where no actual citation has been found.

Shi Huijing · Zhiyue · Mañjuśrī Prajñāpāramitā · The Profundity of Prajñā · Exposition · Summer 2026