楞嚴經 心要連讀The Śūraṅgama Sūtra · Continuous Heart-Essence

Xu Dong’s preface ends on three characters: “I have seen him—”

The sentence breaks off there. The base text reads so, and no collation note supplies the rest.

What He Said Before It

“This Dharma is subtle and fine, and those who know it are already few”: this teaching is exceedingly subtle, and the people who know it are already rare.

“One who could search it to the depths and further spread its benefit across the world”: a person who could go deep into it and carry its benefit out to everyone,

“I have seen him—”

I have seen such a person—

and then nothing.

Two Ways to Read It

One: the base text has lost words, and the sentence once had a second half.

The other: this is the whole sentence, ‘I have seen such a person,’ and as to whom he saw, or what, the prefacer did not say.

We do not choose. We print it as it stands.

The Other Preface

Zupai’s preface runs from “With utmost mind I take refuge and bow” to “the most profound Dharma-collection.”

Not one sentence broken, not one word missing: ten fascicles of scripture folded into a single preface of parallel clauses.

The two prefaces stand together. One walks the whole way; one stops halfway.

Neither Is in the Korean Canon

Under the title of each, the Taishō edition notes one sentence: the Korean recension lacks this preface.

One is supplied from the Song recension, one from the Yuan.

They are words written by later people after reading the sūtra. They are not the sūtra.

We read them to know that someone once read it this way, not to know what the sūtra says.

What the sūtra says is in the ten fascicles that follow.

Ānanda asks for an expedient for cultivating concentration.

The Buddha does not answer. He asks him: why did you first leave home?

He Says: Because I Saw the Tathāgata’s Fine Marks

Then, the Buddha asks: “With what did you see? Who was it that delighted?”

Ānanda says: with my mind and my eyes.

The Buddha says: that is the root of the sickness. “What makes you turn is the fault of the mind and the eyes.”

“The mind and the eyes alone, where are they now?”

Seven Places

Inside the body. Outside the body. Hidden within the faculty. Closing the eyes and seeing darkness is seeing within. Wherever it joins. In between. Attached to nothing.

In every place the Buddha says the same words: “There is no such case.”

Ānanda pointed seven times. Three of the seven times, what he quoted was the Buddha’s own words.

Quoting the scriptures is not seeing the mind.

That One Shout

The Buddha raises his fist and asks: what do you take for your mind?

Ānanda says: the thing that can reason and imagine, that is my mind.

“Stop, Ānanda! This is not your mind!”

Ānanda starts up. If this is not my mind, what is it?

“This is the false imagining of the characteristics of the dusts before you, deluding your true nature.”

A Criterion

“If apart from the dusts before you there is a nature that discriminates, that is truly your mind; if the discriminating nature has no substance apart from the dusts, then it is the shadow-matter of discriminating the dusts before you.”

What remains when the object is taken away is your mind.

What is gone when the object is taken away is the shadow of the object.

Ānanda Says It Himself

“Though I have learned much, if I do not practice it is the same as not having heard, like a man who talks of food and is never filled.”

This is the thing he asked about in tears at the head of the fascicle. One fascicle round, and he has answered it himself.

The End of the Fascicle

The Buddha’s hand opens and closes; Ānanda’s head turns left and right.

“The seeing does not move.” “The seeing neither stretches nor curls.”

What moves is the hand, the head. What does not move, the Buddha has already pointed out: it is seeing.

Why seeing does not move, the next fascicle says.

King Prasenajit is sixty-two.

The Buddha asks him: you saw the Ganges at three, and you see it at sixty-two—is the water the same? The same.

And the one who sees—has it grown old?

“No, World-Honored One!”

One Sentence

“What wrinkles changes; what does not wrinkle does not change. What changes undergoes perishing; what does not change has from the first no arising or perishing.”

What changes will perish. What does not change has never arisen or perished.

Inverted and Upright

The Buddha lets his hand hang down and asks: is this upright or inverted?

Turned over, the hand is still a hand. What is inverted is not the hand.

“Your body and your mind are both things manifested within the wondrous, bright, true, essential, wondrous mind.”

To take one bubble for the whole sea—this is the inversion.

Guest and Host

The mind that hears the Dharma: when the sound stops, it is gone.

“If it were truly your mind, it would go nowhere.”

What comes and goes with the sound is a guest.

The Eight Returns

Light goes back to the sun. Darkness goes back to the night. Passage goes back to the doors and windows. Obstruction goes back to the walls.

When all of it has been given back, to whom is the seeing given back?

“Whatever can be returned is naturally not you; what cannot be returned by you—if it is not you, who is it?”

What Sees Is Not What Is Seen

Can you see my seeing?

“When I am not seeing, why do you not see the place where I am not seeing?”

Everything seen is a thing. Seeing is not a thing.

Is Seeing, Is Not Seeing

Everything pointed to is a thing; not one of them is the seeing.

Among the myriad images, not one is not the seeing.

“As for you, Mañjuśrī—is there another Mañjuśrī who is Mañjuśrī?”

Mañjuśrī is simply Mañjuśrī. Seeing is simply seeing.

The Deepest Sentence

“When seeing sees seeing, the seeing is not seeing; the seeing is still apart from seeing, and seeing cannot reach it.”

When seeing sees the seeing, the seeing is not seeing either.

The Diseased Eye

A diseased eye looks at a lamp, and beside the lamp there is a halo.

The halo is the disease. What sees that this is a disease is not the disease.

“That true essence of seeing, whose nature is not the cataract, is therefore not called seeing.”

The Five Aggregates

Stare, and see flowers. Rub the palms, and feel heat. Speak of plums, and water comes. A torrent runs on. The emptiness in a pitcher.

Ask each where it comes from. Nowhere.

“From the first neither causes and conditions nor spontaneous in nature.”

What has no place it comes from—its very substance is that which does not move.

Stare long enough, and the eye grows tired.

“Both the eye and the strain are alike the strained appearance of bodhi staring.”

The tiredness is false. So is the eye.

The Six Entrances

Seeing arises between light and dark; apart from light and dark, it has no substance.

From the light? From the dark? Out of the faculty? Out of space?

“What has that to do with your entrance?”

The Twelve Bases

Bell and drum sound together. Does the sound come to the ear, or does the ear go to the sound?

If the sound came to Ānanda’s ear, “Maudgalyāyana and Kāśyapa ought not to hear it at the same time.”

“Alike have no place.”

The Eighteen Realms

This consciousness—does it arise because of the faculty, or because of the dust?

“If both fragrant and foul can be smelled, then you, one person, ought to have two noses, and there would be two Ānandas asking me about the Way—which is your body?”

“Nothing at any of the three places.”

Ānanda Asks

The Buddha used to speak of the union of the four elements. Now causes and conditions and spontaneity are set aside together. Which account counts?

“Like one who can talk of medicines but, when the true medicine is before him, cannot tell it.”

The Seven Elements

Split the dust bordering on void once more, and it is emptiness. That one grain—“how many spaces were united to make it?”

Mirror, sun, and tinder are far apart. Where does the fire come from?

Dig a well; one foot of earth comes out, and there is one foot of space. Does the space come out because of the earth? Because of the digging?

“Neither in union nor in combination.” Nowhere is where it comes from.

One Sentence, Said Six Times

“Pure and originally so, pervading the dharma-realm, answering to the minds of beings according to the measure of their knowing.”

Earth, fire, water, wind, space, seeing: six times. At consciousness the sentence changes: “wondrous awakening, profound and still, pervading the dharma-realm, holding and releasing the ten directions of space.”

Hold up a mirror in one place, and fire arises in one place. Hold them up throughout the dharma-realm, and it springs up throughout the world.

“How could it have a place?”

Seeing and Consciousness

“Alike called the six elements.” “Alike called the seven elements.”

Seeing and consciousness are also called elements. This is this sūtra’s distinctive teaching.

The Verse

“The nature of śūnyatā may be dissolved away; the vajra-firm mind will not be moved!”

Space can cease to be. This mind does not move.

Pūrṇa asks: pure and originally so—how do mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise?

The Buddha asks back: awakening—is it bright of itself? Or must you go and brighten it?

“The nature-awakening is necessarily bright; falsely it is taken as a bright awakening.”

The World, Living Beings, Action and Result

One thought that would brighten sets up an object. Once the object is set up, the subject is born.

The wind-wheel, the metal-wheel, the light of fire, the water-wheel. Fathers, mothers, children, grandchildren. Killing, stealing, lust.

“All the nature of awakened brightness that would clearly know; because of knowing, appearances are sent forth; they arise from false seeing.”

After Awakening, Will One Be Confused Again?

The man confused about direction, once shown the way—will he be confused again?

“No, World-Honored One!”

“As when gold ore is mixed with pure gold—once the gold is pure, it does not become mixed again.”

How Do Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind Admit One Another?

Empty space is not any appearance, yet refuses none.

“Is not mind, is not space, is not earth, is not water, is not wind, is not fire”—all the way down to the four virtues of nirvāṇa, ‘is not.’ Then all the way back, ‘is.’

“Apart from ‘is,’ apart from ‘is not’; it is ‘is,’ and it is not ‘is.’”

Yajñadatta

One morning he looks into a mirror, loves the head in the mirror, is angry that his own head cannot be seen, and runs about madly.

“Suddenly the madness stops; the head was not got from outside. And even before the madness stopped, what was lost?”

“When it stops, that is bodhi: the supreme, pure, bright mind originally pervades the dharma-realm and is not got from anyone else.”

Causes and Conditions? Spontaneity?

Ānanda says: the three conditions cut off, the three causes not arising—is this not causes and conditions?

If the head is spontaneous, by what causes and conditions did he run mad? If the madness was originally there, where was it hidden before he went mad?

“Causes and conditions and spontaneity are both idle disputation.”

Two Decisions

The mind at the stage of cause must be one that neither arises nor perishes. To cultivate from an arising-and-perishing mind and seek what neither arises nor perishes—“there is no such thing.”

Where is the root of the afflictions? “The six are the thieves’ go-betweens, robbing your own house of its treasure.”

The eye, eight hundred; the ear, twelve hundred. Choose the perfectly penetrating faculty, and “enter deeply by one gate.”

Striking the Bell

The bell sounds. Do you hear? We hear. The sound dies away. Do you hear? We do not hear.

“Sound within hearing has its own arising and perishing; it is not that your hearing of sound’s arising and sound’s perishing makes your nature of hearing present or absent.”

The man asleep hears the husking of rice in his dream and takes it for a bell. “Though his body slept, his nature of hearing was not dimmed.”

Ānanda asks: in body and mind, what is the knot? From where is it called untying?

The tathāgatas of the ten directions answer with one voice: the knotted root of birth and death is “nothing but your six faculties and no other thing.” Bodhi, the wondrous and permanent, is “your six faculties too, and no other thing.”

To Set Up a Knowing upon Knowing-and-Seeing

“Faculty and dust share one source; bondage and release are not two; the nature of consciousness is false, like flowers in the sky.”

Appearance and seeing, like two reeds leaning crossed against each other.

“To set up a knowing upon knowing-and-seeing is the root of ignorance; knowing-and-seeing with no seeing set up is nirvāṇa, true purity without outflows.”

The Verses

“Knotting and untying share the same cause; sage and ordinary have no two roads.”

“Confusion and dimness are ignorance; to bring forth brightness is release.”

“Untying the knots follows an order; when the six are untied, the one too is gone.”

“The mind itself grasps the mind itself; what is not illusion becomes illusory dharmas. Not grasping, there is nothing not-illusory; when even the not-illusory does not arise”.

One Kerchief, Six Knots

The Buddha ties a knot and asks: what is this called? A knot. He ties again, asks again. Six times.

The kerchief is one strip. Can the sixth knot be called the first? It cannot.

“The kerchief’s substance is the same; because of the knots there is difference.”

The six faculties are likewise: “within what is utterly the same, what is utterly different arises.”

Not Even Called One

With all the knots undone there is no this or that; “it is not even called one—how could six come to be?”

“The six untied, the one gone—it is just so.”

Mountains, rivers, the great earth, birth and death and nirvāṇa, “are all appearances of flowers from mad toil and inversion.”

Pull Left, Pull Right: Neither Unties It

Pull to the left: not untied. Pull to the right: not untied.

“It must be at the heart of the knot; untie it there and it comes apart.”

“Choose among the six faculties as your mind inclines; if the knot of the faculty is removed, the appearances of dust perish of themselves.”

In Order

The knots were tied in order; they must be untied in order.

“When this faculty is first untied, one first attains the emptiness of persons; when the nature of emptiness is perfectly bright, one accomplishes release from dharmas; when release from dharmas is done, the emptiness of both does not arise.”

Enter by one faculty. Upon one faculty there are three layers.

Which One Is Perfectly Penetrating?

The Buddha asks: when you first set your minds on awakening, by which of the eighteen realms did you enter?

Twenty-four passages of realization. Sound, form, scent, taste, touch, dharmas. Seeing, breath, taste, awareness, emptiness. Eye-consciousness, ear-consciousness, nose-consciousness, tongue-consciousness, body-consciousness, mind-consciousness. Fire, earth, water, wind, space, consciousness, the faculties.

One passage, one gate. “This is foremost.”

Mahāsthāmaprāpta last: “gather in all six faculties, and with pure recollection continuing unbroken attain samādhi.”

The ear-faculty has not yet been told. Avalokiteśvara is in the next fascicle.

Avalokiteśvara says: that buddha “taught me to enter samādhi from hearing, reflection, and cultivation.”

“At first, within hearing, I entered the stream and let the object of hearing vanish; what was entered being still, the two appearances of motion and stillness clearly did not arise. Advancing gradually in this way, hearing and what is heard were both exhausted; not dwelling even where hearing was exhausted, awareness and what it is aware of were both empty; when emptiness and awareness reached their utmost completeness, the emptying and what is emptied were also both extinguished. Arising and ceasing having ceased, stillness-and-extinction appeared before me.”

The Two Excellences

“Above, joining the fundamental wondrous awakened mind of all the buddhas of the ten directions, I have the same power of kindness as the buddhas, the tathāgatas.”

“Below, joining all beings of the six destinies in the ten directions, I have the same yearning compassion as all beings.”

The power of kindness manifests the thirty-two responses. The yearning compassion bestows the fourteen fearlessnesses.

Whatever Is Sought, That Body Appears

Whatever is sought, that body appears. Buddha, solitary awakened one, one awakened through conditions, śrāvaka. From the Brahmā king to the princes of the four heavenly kings. From human king to young girl. Devas, dragons, the eight classes; humans and non-humans.

“All are accomplished at ease by the wondrous power without contrivance of samādhi, of hearing-permeation and hearing-cultivation.”

In My Body and Mind

“Because I do not observe sound itself but observe the one who observes, I enable the suffering and afflicted beings of the ten directions, observing their voices, to be liberated at once.”

Fire cannot burn. Water cannot drown. Ghosts cannot harm. Blades are “like cutting water, or like blowing on light.”

To hold one name, and to hold the names of sixty-two Ganges-sands of Dharma princes: for the two, “blessing and virtue exactly equal, without difference.”

“These are called the power of the fourteen bestowals of fearlessness, blessing and virtue provided to beings.”

Inconceivable, Without Contrivance

“In all the lands of the ten directions, as many as fine dust-motes, I am called the bestower of fearlessness.”

“Those who seek samādhi obtain samādhi, those who seek long life obtain long life, and so on up to those who seek great nirvāṇa obtaining great nirvāṇa.”

“The Buddha asks about perfect penetration; I, from the ear gate, by the samādhi of perfect illumination, the conditioning mind at ease, through the appearance of entering the stream attained samādhi and accomplished bodhi—this is foremost.”

The Buddhas’ Lights Cross

The tathāgatas of the ten directions “sent forth jeweled light together from the five parts of their bodies”; “light and light crossing and interlacing were like a net of jeweled threads.”

The Buddha commands Mañjuśrī: among the twenty-five gates there is “truly no difference of superior and inferior, or of before and after.” “Of these twenty-five practices, which suits his faculty?”

Mañjuśrī Chooses

“Returning to the source, the nature is not two, yet the expedient means have many gates.”

“When beginners enter samādhi, slow and fast are not the same.”

Twenty-four gates, twenty-four questions: “how could one attain perfect penetration?”

The True Substance of Teaching in This Land

“The true substance of teaching in this land is pure in sound and hearing; wishing to attain samādhi, one truly should enter through hearing.”

Drums struck in the ten directions, heard in ten places at one time: complete. Sounds heard through a wall, far and near alike: penetrating. No sound is not no hearing: constant.

“You use hearing to hold the Dharma-gates of buddha after buddha; why not hear for yourself the nature that hears?”

“Once one faculty has returned to its source, the six faculties all become liberated.”

“Turn back your inverted hearing-mechanism, and turn hearing back to hear the self-nature that hears; the self-nature accomplishes the unsurpassed path; perfect penetration truly is like this.”

“To accomplish the mind of nirvāṇa, Avalokiteśvara is supreme.”

Ānanda Asks for the Last Kalpa

“Although I am not yet delivered, I vow to deliver all beings of the final kalpa.”

“How are they to establish the bodhimaṇḍa, keep far from the doings of Māra?”

The Buddha answers: “gathering in the mind is precept, from precept arises concentration, from concentration wisdom is brought forth; this is called the three trainings without outflows.”

Minds That Do Not Lust, Do Not Kill, Do Not Steal

Minds that do not lust. Minds that do not kill. Minds that do not steal. No great false speech.

“You cultivate samādhi originally to leave the toils of the dusts; if the lustful mind is not removed, the toils of the dusts cannot be left.”

“It is like steaming sand and stones wishing them to become rice: after a hundred thousand kalpas, they can only be called hot sand.”

“Stops up his own ears and shouts loudly, hoping that others will not hear.”

“Pouring water into a leaking vessel, hoping to fill it.”

“Like carving human excrement into the form of sandalwood and hoping for fragrance: there is no such possibility.”

“Minds like a straight bowstring, true in everything, they enter samādhi and are forever without the doings of Māra.”

“What I say thus is called the Buddha’s word; what is not said thus is the word of Pāpīyān.”

The precepts first: “Those who seek the bodhisattva path must first uphold these four rules of discipline, pure and bright as ice and frost, so that of themselves they cannot put forth any branches or leaves.”

“If these four matters are not lost or forgotten, the mind does not even climb after forms, smells, tastes, and touches; from where, then, would any of the doings of Māra arise?”

Habits from Former Lives

“If there are habits from former lives that cannot be extinguished, teach that person to recite with a single mind my Buddha-Crown Light, the Mahā-sitātapatra, the unsurpassed divine spell.”

Mātaṅgī: “causes and conditions running through kalpas and the habit-energy of love and affection, not for one life only, nor for one kalpa only; yet as soon as I proclaimed this spell, her loving mind fell away forever and she became an arhat.”

“It is like tossing dust into a following wind; what hardship or danger is there?”

First the Precepts, Then the Spell, Then the Altar

“If they do not meet a truly pure monk, their precepts and rules of discipline certainly cannot be accomplished.”

“recite this divine spell spoken by the mind-buddha one hundred and eight times; after that they bind the boundary and establish the bodhimaṇḍa.”

“If they go without sleep in this way through three sevens of days, I myself appear before such a person, stroke the crown, comfort, and cause the person to awaken.”

The Altar

The white ox of the Snow Mountains. The ten fragrances. “Sixteen feet across, an eight-cornered altar is built.”

Eight mirrors on the altar, eight mirrors in the air, “face to face, so that their forms and reflections interpenetrate layer upon layer.”

The first seven: bowing to the buddhas, reciting the spell, circling the altar. The second seven: making the vows. The third seven: upholding the spell. “the tathāgatas of the ten directions appear all at once, and where the lights of the mirrors cross, they receive the Buddha’s stroking of the crown.”

“those of sharp faculties, without rising from their seats, attain the state of srota-āpanna. Even if the sagely fruit in their body and mind is not yet accomplished, they know for certain for themselves that they will become buddhas without error.”

The Transformation Buddha Speaks the Spell

“Then from his fleshy crown-knot the World-Honored One welled forth a light of a hundred jewels; from the light welled forth a thousand-petaled jeweled lotus; the transformation Tathāgata sat within the jeweled flower.”

The spell runs to four hundred and thirty-nine phrases. A transcription of Sanskrit sounds, not translated, following the example of the ancient masters.

The Heart of the Spell

“give birth to all the buddhas of the ten directions. The tathāgatas of the ten directions, by this heart of the spell, attain unsurpassed Right and Universal Knowledge and awakening.”

Holding this heart of the spell. Riding this heart of the spell. Holding this heart of the spell within. Upholding this heart of the spell. Relying on this heart of the spell. Following this heart of the spell. Practicing this heart of the spell. Reciting this heart of the spell. “The tathāgatas of the ten directions transmit this heart of the spell, and after their extinction entrust the affairs of the Buddha-Dharma to be upheld to the end.”

“This spell is also called the Tathāgata’s crown.”

“if you do not uphold this spell and yet sit in a bodhimaṇḍa, and wish your body and mind to be far from the doings of Māra, there is no such possibility.”

Upholding the Spell

“Even if beings, with scattered minds and not in samādhi, recall it in the mind and recite it with the mouth, these vajra kings constantly follow those sons of good family; how much more those who have decisively set forth the bodhi-mind?”

“Even if they make no altar, do not enter a bodhimaṇḍa, and do not walk the path, if they recite and uphold this spell, it is the same as the merit of entering the altar and walking the path.”

“Therefore the Tathāgata proclaims this spell to protect, in ages to come, the beginners among those who cultivate as they enter samādhi.”

“if such sons of good family do not attain penetration of the mind in this body born of father and mother, the tathāgatas of the ten directions would be speaking falsely.”

Protection

The vajra beings: “As the Buddha has said, we shall with sincere minds protect those who cultivate bodhi in this way.”

The bodhisattvas Vajragarbha King: “long ago accomplished bodhi yet do not take nirvāṇa; we constantly follow this spell, rescuing and protecting those of the final age who cultivate samādhi and practice rightly.”

“I shall strike their heads to pieces with my jeweled club, like fine dust.”

Ānanda Asks about the Stages

“what is called the ground of dry wisdom? By what gradual stages do the forty-four minds come to have the names of the stages of cultivation? To what place do they come that is called entering the grounds? What is called the bodhisattva of equal awakening?”

The Buddha does not answer first. “The wondrous nature is perfectly bright, apart from all names and marks; from the beginning there are no worlds and no beings.”

“Because of falsity there is arising; because of arising there is ceasing. Arising and ceasing are called false; the extinction of falsity is called true. These are called the two names of the transformed basis, the Tathāgata’s unsurpassed bodhi and great nirvāṇa.”

“you should first recognize the two causes of inversion, of beings and of the world. When inversion does not arise, this is the Tathāgata’s true samādhi.”

The Two Inversions

The inversion of beings: “Because of the mind whose nature is bright, the nature’s brightness being complete, from brightness the nature is put forth; the nature being false, seeing arises; from ultimate nonexistence comes final existence.”

“Wishing to return to the true, this wishing for the true is already not the truly true suchness-nature; not being the true yet seeking to return, it plainly becomes what is not a mark.”

The inversion of the world: “This that has and what is had arise falsely in divided segments, and from this the realm is established; not being causing and caused, with no abiding and abided in, shifting and flowing without abiding, from this time is formed.”

“The three times and the four directions combine and enter one another, transforming beings into twelve classes.”

The Twelve Classes of Beings

“the egg-born, the mother-born, the moisture-born, and the transformation-born; those with form and those without form; those with thought and those without thought; those not with form, those not without form; those not with thought, those not without thought.”

Each class: a certain turning in the round, a certain inversion, combining with a certain thing, forming eighty-four thousand confused thoughts of a certain kind. Motion, desire, inclination, borrowing, obstruction, delusion, shadow, stupidity, falseness, nature, deception, killing.

“Because of the world’s false turning in the round, the inversion of motion, it combines with breath and forms eighty-four thousand confused thoughts of flying and sinking.”

“when the young are grown, father and mother are both eaten by them; their kinds fill it. These are called the twelve kinds of classes of beings.”

The simile: “as when, in a clean vessel, one removes the poisoned honey, washes the vessel with hot water mixed with ashes and fragrance, and afterward stores sweet dew in it.”

“First, cultivation that removes the auxiliary causes. Second, true cultivation that cuts out the proper nature. Third, advancing that goes against the present deeds.”

The Three Gradual Stages

The auxiliary causes are food. “These five pungent plants, eaten cooked, arouse lust; eaten raw, they increase anger.”

The proper nature is lust and killing, cut out by the precepts. “If one does not cut off lust and killing and yet leaves the three realms, there is no such thing.” “First uphold the four and the eight expulsion offenses of the śrāvakas, holding the body so that it does not move; afterward practice the pure rules of the bodhisattvas, holding the mind so that it does not arise.”

The present deeds are the faculties chasing the objects; to go against it is to turn the flow back. “The objects no longer being conditioned, the faculties have nothing to pair with; the flow is turned back into one whole, and the six functions do not operate.” “Like beryl with a bright moon hung within.” “This person at once obtains the patient acceptance of the unborn.”

Dry Wisdom

“Desire and love have dried up; the faculties and their objects no longer pair; the residual substance now present does not continue to be born. Holding the mind empty and bright, he is purely wisdom.” “Having wisdom in its dryness, this is called the ground of dry wisdom.”

“The habit of desire having just dried, he has not yet joined with the water of the Tathāgata’s Dharma-stream. With this very mind he flows in, center to center.”

The Fifty-five Stages

The ten faiths: “all false thought extinguished without remainder, the middle way pure and true: this is called the abode of the mind of faith.” “Like two mirrors facing each other in their light, with wondrous reflections within entering into one another layer upon layer: this is called the mind of dedication.”

The ten abodes: “like a being in the intermediate state seeking its parents of itself, the hidden faith penetrates in the dark and enters the seed of the Tathāgata: this is called the abode of noble birth.” “The form complete, he comes forth at birth and is personally a child of the Buddha: this is called the abode of the Dharma prince.”

The ten practices: “in each mote of dust manifesting the worlds of the ten directions, the manifested dust and the manifested worlds not obstructing one another: this is called the practice of non-attachment.”

The ten dedications: “while delivering beings, to extinguish the mark of delivering, turning the unconditioned mind toward the path of nirvāṇa.” “The virtue of the nature perfectly formed, the measure of the Dharma-realm extinguished: this is called the dedication of the measureless Dharma-realm.”

The four applied practices: “like drilling for fire, when the wood is about to catch: this is called the ground of warmth.” “Like climbing a high mountain, with the body entering empty space while below there is still a slight obstruction: this is called the ground of the summit.” “Like a person bearing a matter, neither holding it in nor letting it out: this is called the ground of acceptance.” “Number and measure extinguished, delusion and awakening and the middle way, neither of the two to be named: this is called the ground of foremost in the world.”

The ten grounds: “awakening penetrating to the Tathāgata, exhausting the realm of the buddhas: this is called the ground of joy.” “The wondrous cloud of the shade of compassion covering the sea of nirvāṇa: this is called the ground of the Dharma-cloud.”

“The Tathāgata goes against the flow, and this bodhisattva, going with it, arrives; the borders of awakening enter and cross, and this is called equal awakening.”

“This awakening first obtains the initial ground of dry wisdom within the vajra mind. Thus, single and compound, layer upon layer, twelve in all, wondrous awakening is exhausted and the unsurpassed Way accomplished.”

Right Contemplation

“These various grounds are all, by vajra contemplation of the ten profound similes of illusion within śamatha, cultivated and realized purely with the vipaśyanā of the tathāgatas, entering gradually and deeply.”

“All these, by the three advances, are well able to accomplish the fifty-five stages of the true path of bodhi.”

“One who contemplates thus is called one of right contemplation; one who contemplates otherwise is called one of wrong contemplation.”

The Name of the Sūtra

“The Great Buddha-Crown, the Sitātapatra Unsurpassed Jeweled Seal, the Pure Ocean-Eye of the Tathāgatas of the Ten Directions.” “Saving and Protecting the Close Kin, Delivering Ānanda and the Bhikṣuṇī Prakṛti of This Assembly, Attaining the Bodhi-Mind and Entering the Ocean of Universal Knowledge.” “The Tathāgata’s Secret Cause, Cultivation and Realization of the Complete Meaning.” “The Great, Vast, and Extensive Wondrous Lotus-King, the Dhāraṇī Spell That Is Mother of the Buddhas of the Ten Directions.” “The Consecration Phrases, the Myriad Practices of All Bodhisattvas, Śūraṅgama.” “You should uphold it.”

Ānanda’s Question

“If this wondrous, bright, true, pure, wondrous mind is from the beginning all-pervading and perfect, so that even the great earth, the grasses and trees, and the wriggling creatures that hold spirit are in their original source true suchness, which is the true body of the Tathāgata’s buddhahood, and the Buddha’s body is real, why are there again the paths of the hells, hungry ghosts, animals, asuras, humans, devas, and the rest?”

“Do these paths exist of themselves from the beginning, or do they arise from the false habits of beings?”

“Do these hells have a fixed place, or does each being naturally produce its own deeds and each undergo its own privately?”

Feeling and Thought

“All beings are in reality fundamentally true and pure; because of their false seeing, false habits arise, and from this the inner portion and the outer portion are divided.”

Feeling: “though the loves differ, their flowing and binding are the same. Moist and wet, it does not rise; of itself it falls. This is called the inner portion.”

Thought: “though the thoughts differ, their lightness and rising are the same. Flying and moving, it does not sink; of itself it rises beyond. This is called the outer portion.”

“At the moment of death, before the warm touch is given up, the good and evil of a whole life appear at once together. Death going against, birth going with, the two habits cross.”

“Pure thought flies, and one is surely born in the heavens.” “Feeling and thought equal, one neither flies nor falls, but is born among humans; bright thought makes one quick, dark feeling makes one dull.” “Pure feeling sinks, and one enters the Avīci hell.”

“Following the evil deeds one has made, though one brings it on oneself, within the common lot there is also a fixed ground.”

The Ten Habit-Causes, the Six Crossed Retributions

“They make the ten habit-causes and undergo the six crossed retributions.”

Lust, greed, arrogance, anger, deceit, fraud, enmity, views, wronging, litigation. “As when a person rubs the hands against each other, the mark of warmth appears. The two habits burning together, there are thus the matters of the iron bed and the copper pillar.” “Therefore all the tathāgatas of the ten directions, looking upon the practice of lust, name it alike the fire of desire, and the bodhisattvas see desire as they would avoid a pit of fire.”

“All beings make deeds with the six consciousnesses, and the evil retribution they bring on comes out of the six faculties.” Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, thinking. “Thus the fire of seeing: burning the hearing, it can become the cauldron of boiling water and the molten copper.”

Avīci, the eight without interval, the eighteen, the thirty-six, the one hundred and eight. “Thus beings, making separately and doing separately, enter within the world a ground of the common lot. False thought gives rise to it; it does not exist from the beginning.”

Ghosts, Animals, Humans, Immortals, Devas

Ghosts: “these persons all fell by pure feeling; when the fire of their deeds has burned dry, they come up out of it as ghosts.” “If one awakens to bodhi, then in the wondrous, perfect brightness there is from the beginning nothing at all.”

Animals: “the deeds of the ghost being exhausted, feeling and thought both become empty.” “In the body of an animal one repays the old debt.”

“Such evil deeds arise of themselves from within; they do not descend from heaven, nor come up from the earth, nor are they given by others; summoned by one’s own falsity, one comes back oneself to undergo them. Within the mind of bodhi they are all the congealing of floating, empty, false thought.”

Humans: “when the repayment is full it stops of itself.” “Thus even through kalpas as many as motes of dust they eat one another and kill one another, like a turning wheel, now high and now low, without rest. Except by śamatha or the appearance of a buddha in the world, it cannot be stopped.”

Immortals: “not relying on right awakening to cultivate samādhi, they separately cultivate false thought, keeping their thought fixed and making the body firm.” “Not cultivating samādhi, when the retribution is exhausted they come back! and scatter into the destinies.”

Devas: “these six heavens, though in form they have come out of movement, in the traces of the mind still cross. From here downward is called the realm of desire.”

“Ānanda! All those in the world who cultivate the mind, if they do not rely on dhyāna, have no wisdom.”

The Realm of Form

The first dhyāna: “though this is not the proper cultivation of true samādhi, in the pure mind the outflows do not move.” The second: “though this is not the proper cultivation of true samādhi, in the pure mind the coarse outflows are already subdued.” The third: “though this is not the proper attainment of true samādhi, in the mind at peace joy is complete.” The fourth: “though this is not the unconditioned true ground of non-movement, the mind that has something to attain is ripe in its function.”

The heaven of No-Thought: “this person, having taken arising and ceasing as the cause, cannot bring to light the nature that neither arises nor ceases; in the first half-kalpa it ceases, in the latter half-kalpa it arises.”

The five heavens of no return: “The nine grades of habit-energy of the lower realms are extinguished all at once, suffering and bliss both gone; having no dwelling below, they establish their abode within the common lot of the relinquishing mind.” “Just as now in the world the wild plains and deep mountains, the holy sites of the Way, are all held and sustained by arhats, so that the coarse people of the world cannot see them.”

“These eighteen heavens go alone without mingling, but have not exhausted the burden of form. From here downward is called the realm of form.”

The Formless Realm

“From this summit of existence, the border of form, there are again two forking paths: if in the relinquishing mind one brings forth wisdom, and the light of wisdom perfectly penetrates, one at once leaves the world of dust, becomes an arhat, and enters the bodhisattva vehicle; this kind are called the great arhats who turn their minds.”

The station of consciousness: “within it there remains only the ālaya consciousness, together with the whole of manas and the subtle half-portion.” The station of neither perception nor non-perception: “as if existing and not existing, as if exhausted and not exhausted.”

“These search out emptiness to the end but do not exhaust the principle of emptiness.” “The devas in each of these heavens are ordinary people receiving the requital of the fruits of their deeds; when the requital is done they enter the wheel. Their heavenly kings are bodhisattvas roaming in samādhi, advancing gradually, on the path of practice that turns toward the ranks of the holy.”

“All this is from not understanding the wondrous, awakened, bright mind; falsity piled upon falsity arises, and falsely there are the three realms, and within them one falsely follows the seven destinies and sinks. The pudgalas each follow their kind.”

The Seven Destinies Summed Up

“When the seven destinies are finely examined, they are all dim and heavy conditioned thoughts. By false thought one takes birth, by false thought one follows one’s deeds; in the wondrous, perfect, bright, unmade original mind they are all like flowers in the sky, from the beginning having nothing at all. They are but a single falsity, with no root or thread.”

“Having them is called the ranks of ghosts, lacking them is called the destiny of the devas; having and lacking overturn each other, and the nature of the turning wheel arises. If one attains the wondrous arising of samādhi, then it is wondrous, constant, and still. Having and lacking are both none, and the absence of the two is also extinguished; there is not even not-killing, not-stealing, not-lusting. How could one still follow the matters of killing, stealing, and lust?”

“Strive in your cultivation: if you wish to attain bodhi, you must remove the three delusions. If the three delusions are not exhausted, even should you attain the spiritual penetrations, they are all the conditioned functioning of the world; the habit-energy not extinguished, you fall into the way of Māra.” “You yourself falsely make it; it is not the fault of bodhi. One who speaks thus is called one who speaks rightly; if one speaks otherwise, it is the speech of the Māra kings.”

The Tathāgata Speaks Again

“At that moment the Tathāgata, about to leave the Dharma seat, on the lion throne took hold of the seven-jeweled armrest, turned his purple-gold mountain of a body, leaned back upon it once more.”

“You still do not recognize the subtle doings of Māra in cultivating śamatha and vipaśyanā; when a demonic state appears before you, you cannot recognize it, your washing of the mind is not right, and you fall into wrong views. Whether the demons of your aggregates, or again the Māra of the heavens, or possession by ghosts and spirits, or an encounter with mountain-demons: with the mind unclear, you take the thief for your son.”

Master and Guest

“You should know that the twelve classes of beings of the worlds with outflows, in the substance of the mind of original awakening, wondrous and bright, awakened and perfect, are not two with and not different from the buddhas of the ten directions.” “You should know that space arises within your mind, like a wisp of cloud dotting the great clear sky. How much more the worlds within space?”

“When one of you brings forth the true and returns to the source, this space of the ten directions wholly melts away; how should the lands within space not shake and split?”

“Yet those demons, though they have great rage, are within the toil of dust, and you are within wondrous awakening; like wind blowing on light, like a knife cutting water, they do not touch at all. You are like boiling water, they like hard ice; as the warmth draws near, before many days they melt away. They rely in vain on their spiritual power, being only guests; that they accomplish their disruption is through the master of the five aggregates within your mind. If the master is deluded, the guest gets its chance.”

“If in the dhyāna of that very place you are awake and undeluded, those doings of Māra can do nothing to you. When the aggregates melt and you enter brightness, that host of deviants all receive the dark breath. Brightness can break darkness; drawing near, they melt away of themselves. How should they dare stay to disturb your meditative concentration?”

“Among the eighty thousand practices she only damaged one precept, and because your mind was pure you had not yet sunk. But this would ruin the whole body of your jeweled awakening, like the house of a chief minister suddenly meeting confiscation, tumbling into ruin, with no one to pity and save it.”

The Aggregate of Form

“Like a clear-eyed person in a great darkness; the pure nature is wondrous and clean, but the mind has not yet put forth light. This is called the domain of the aggregate of form. If the eyes become bright and clear, and the ten directions open wide with no more darkness, this is called the aggregate of form being ended, and this person is then able to go beyond the turbidity of the kalpa. Looking into its source, solidified false thought is its root.”

“This is only the work of the mind obtained for a time; it is not holy realization. Not taking it for a holy mind, it is called a good state; if one takes it for sagehood, one receives the host of deviants.”

The tenth state: “this is called the deviant mind harboring a mountain-demon, or meeting the Māra of the heavens entering one’s heart and vitals, preaching the Dharma without cause and penetrating wondrous meanings; it is not holy realization. Not taking it for a holy mind, the doings of Māra melt away.”

“Beings in their stubborn delusion do not measure themselves; meeting these conditions, deluded and not recognizing them, they say they have ascended to sagehood. The great lie is formed, and they fall into the Avīci hell.”

The Aggregate of Feeling

“Like a person in a nightmare, whose hands and feet are intact and whose seeing and hearing are not confused, but whose mind, touched by an alien evil, cannot move; this is called the domain of the aggregate of feeling. If the fault of the nightmare ceases, and his mind leaves the body and looks back upon his own face, going and staying at will with no further hindrance, this is called the aggregate of feeling being ended, and this person is then able to go beyond the turbidity of views. Looking into its source, empty-bright false thought is its root.”

“Awakened, there is no fault; it is not holy realization. Clearly aware and undeluded, in time it melts away of itself.” “Losing right reception, he will fall and sink.”

“This is called cultivating the mind without wisdom and losing oneself.” “This is called lightness and ease without wisdom to restrain oneself.” “This is called seeing the superior without wisdom to save oneself.” “Without wisdom to hold himself, he strays into the desires.”

“In his mind he even makes light of the tathāgatas of the ten directions; how much more the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas of the lower ranks.” “He slanders the keeping of precepts as the Lesser Vehicle: a bodhisattva who has awakened to emptiness, what keeping or breaking is there for him?” “He speaks only of desire as the path of bodhi, teaching the white-robed to practice desire as equals, and calling those who practice lust sons who uphold the Dharma.”

The Aggregate of Perception

“His mind leaves his form like a bird leaving its cage.” “Like a person talking in deep sleep: though this person knows nothing else, his words have already formed sounds in sequence, so that those not asleep all understand what he says. This is called the domain of the aggregate of perception. If moving thoughts are ended and floating perceptions melted away, in the awakened and bright mind it is as if dust and dirt were removed; the whole cycle of death and birth is illuminated from beginning to end. This is called the aggregate of perception being ended, and this person is then able to go beyond the turbidity of afflictions. Looking into its source, fusing-and-penetrating false thought is its root.”

“In samādhi the mind loves perfect brightness; sharpening its fine thought, it craves skill. At that time the Māra of the heavens, watching, gets its chance; it sends its essence to possess a person, who speaks sūtras and Dharma from his mouth. That person is unaware that it is the demon possessing him, and says of himself that he has attained unsurpassed nirvāṇa.”

“This person, foolish and deluded, takes him for a bodhisattva. Believing his teaching, his mind is shaken; he breaks the Buddha’s rules, and secretly practices craving and desire.”

“This is called the strange ghost, grown old and become a demon, which troubles this person. When its satiety arises, it leaves that person’s body; disciple and teacher alike fall into the troubles of the king. You should be aware beforehand, and not enter the turning wheel; deluded and unknowing, you fall into the Avīci hell.”

“From his mouth he constantly says that the beings of the ten directions are all his children, that he gave birth to the buddhas, that he brought forth the world, that he is the original buddha, who came forth into the world of himself and not through cultivation. This is called the Māra of the heavens, sovereign and dwelling in the world.”

“These ten kinds of demons, in the last age, leave home and cultivate the Way within my Dharma, whether possessing a person’s body or manifesting their own form, all saying that they have accomplished Right and Universal Knowledge and awakening; they praise lustful desire and break the Buddha’s rules. The earlier evil demon teachers and the demon disciples transmit lust from lust to lust.”

“You need not now take quiescence first; even should you attain the stage beyond training, keep your vow to enter that final Dharma, give rise to great compassion, and save and deliver the beings of right mind and deep faith, so that they do not become possessed by demons but attain right knowledge and views. I have now delivered you out of birth and death; to follow the Buddha’s words is called repaying the Buddha’s kindness.”

“You must take the Tathāgata’s words and, after my extinction, transmit and show them in the final Dharma, so that all beings awaken to this meaning. Do not let the Māra of the heavens get its chance. Hold and protect them, that they may accomplish the unsurpassed Way.”

“Ānanda! These five aggregates of appropriation are formed by the five false thoughts.”

The Domain of the Aggregate of Formation

“Dreaming and thinking are ordinarily extinguished, and waking and sleeping are constantly one. The bright awareness is empty and still like a clear sky, with no more coarse and heavy shadow-affairs of former objects; looking upon the great earth, mountains, and rivers of the world, it is like a mirror reflecting brightly: what comes finds nothing to stick to, what passes leaves no trace. Receiving in emptiness and answering in reflection, the old habits are wholly gone, and there is only the one essential truth; the root source of arising and ceasing is from here laid bare.”

“One sees the common basis of their arising, like a mirage, flickering and glimmering, limpid and stirring, the ultimate pivot of the floating sense faculties and their objects; this is called the domain of the aggregate of formation. If this limpid, stirring, flickering and glimmering original nature enters into its original clarity, the original habit-energy settled in a single clearing, like waves subsiding into still water, this is called the aggregate of formation ended, and such a person can then surpass the turbidity of living beings. Observe what it comes from: its root is the hidden-and-obscure false thought.”

The Ten States of the Aggregate of Formation

“Having exhausted the root of the classes of beings, one observes that hidden, limpid, constantly stirring source.” “By this calculation one loses Right and Universal Knowledge, falls into the non-Buddhist paths, and is confused about the nature of bodhi.”

No cause: “Beyond eighty thousand kalpas it is dark and nothing is seen, and so one forms this understanding: ‘These beings of the ten directions in this world have existed without cause of themselves for eighty thousand kalpas.’” “Crows have been black from the beginning and swans white from the beginning; humans and devas have been upright from the beginning and animals horizontal from the beginning; white is not made by washing, black is not made by dyeing; through eighty thousand kalpas there has been no change.”

Pervasive permanence: “By cultivation one can know all the arisings and ceasings of the beings of the ten directions through twenty thousand kalpas, all circling round and never scattering or lost, and reckons this to be permanence.” Partial permanence: “This person observes the wondrous bright mind pervading the realms of the ten directions, and takes its limpidity for the ultimate divine self.” Limits: “One reckons that all of them are half arising and half ceasing, and declares that of all there is in the world, one half has limits, one half has none.”

Confused evasion: “I now both arise and cease, both exist and do not exist, both increase and decrease.” “When someone comes to ask, one answers with a single word, saying only ‘no.’ Apart from ‘no’ there is nothing one says.”

Existence: “All reckon and say that there is existence after death, and circling in this way there are sixteen marks. From this one confusedly reckons that afflictions are ultimate and bodhi is ultimate, the two natures running side by side and never touching.” Nonexistence: “Even if there is a principle of life, without feeling and perception it is the same as grass and trees. This substance, present before one, cannot be found; after death how could there be any further marks?” Neither: “Within form, feeling, and perception one sees existence that is not existence; within the flowing of formation one observes nonexistence that is not nonexistence.” Annihilation: “Circling in this way, searching the seven limits to the end: present extinction, and after extinction nothing more.” Present nirvāṇa: “Deluded about the heavens with outflows, one takes them for the unconditioned, and the five places of peace for the supreme pure refuge.”

“Ānanda! These ten kinds of mad interpretation in dhyāna are all the aggregate of formation interacting with the working mind, and so these awakenings appear.” “Do not let the demon of the mind raise up its deep calamity of itself; keep and protect them, dissolve their wrong views, teach their body and mind to open and awaken to the true meaning, so that on the unsurpassed Way they meet no forking path. Do not let their minds pray for a little and take it as enough; be the pure guiding mark of the great King of Awakening.”

The Domain of the Aggregate of Consciousness

“The hidden, limpid, stirring common life-mechanism of the nature of the worlds suddenly falls apart and splits; the deep vein of the pudgala’s requital of deeds, the fine hidden cord and knot, has its responses cut off. In the heaven of nirvāṇa one is about to greatly and brightly awaken, like the cock’s later crowing; looking toward the east, there is already a fine light.”

“The six faculties are empty and still, no longer racing and scattering; within and without limpid and bright, one enters where there is nothing to enter, and penetrates deeply to the source of how the twelve kinds of beings in the ten directions receive life. Observing the source and holding to the origin, the classes are no longer summoned; in the realms of the ten directions one has gained what is common to them, and the fine light does not sink but brings out the hidden and secret; this is called the domain of the aggregate of consciousness.”

“One grinds away the six gates and accomplishes their joining and opening, so that seeing and hearing communicate with one another and their functioning for one another is pure; and the worlds of the ten directions, together with body and mind, are like cat’s-eye beryl, bright and clear within and without; this is called the aggregate of consciousness ended, and such a person can then surpass the turbidity of life. Observe what it comes from: its root is the inverted false thought of shadowy emptiness.”

The Ten Graspings of the Aggregate of Consciousness

“Having exhausted the emptiness of all formations, having already ceased arising and ceasing, yet not yet perfect in the fine and wondrous quiescence.” “Deluded about the Buddha’s bodhi, losing knowing and seeing.” “Turns away from perfect penetration and turns its back on the city of nirvāṇa.”

“If, at the place one returns to, one establishes a true and permanent cause and gives rise to a superior understanding, this person falls into the grasping at what is caused as the cause, and becomes the companion of Kapila and the obscure principle he returns to.” “All the beings of the twelve kinds throughout the realm of space are of one class, flowing out from within my body.” “One suspects that one’s own body and mind flow out from there, and that all of space in the ten directions arises from it.” “The grasses and trees of the ten directions are all called sentient, no different from humans; grasses and trees become humans, and humans at death become again the grasses and trees of the ten directions.” “One seeks the brightness of fire, delights in the purity of water, loves the circulation of wind, observes the formation of dust, and reveres and serves each of them.” “Takes the support of eternal extinction as the refuge one returns to.” “If, within perfect permanence, one makes the body firm and permanently abiding, the same as the essential perfection, long and never declining.” “Observing that life communicates throughout, one holds back the dusty toil, fearing it will be exhausted, and at this juncture sits in a lotus palace, broadly conjures the seven treasures, multiplies jeweled maidens, and gives free rein to the mind.”

“The so-called seeing of suffering, cutting off of its arising, realizing of cessation, and cultivating of the path. Dwelling in cessation one stops and advances no further, and giving rise to a superior understanding, this person falls into the fixed-nature śrāvakas, and the unlearned bhikṣus of overweening pride become his companions.” “If, within the perfectly fused, pure, awakened brightness, one brings forth and investigates the deep and wondrous, and then establishes nirvāṇa and advances no further, and giving rise to a superior understanding, this person falls into the fixed-nature pratyekabuddhas, and the kind of the solitary awakened by conditions who do not turn their minds become his companions.”

The Exhortation

“Ānanda! These ten kinds of dhyāna go mad midway; depending on delusion, they give rise, within what is not yet enough, to the realization of fullness; all are the aggregate of consciousness interacting with the working mind, and so these positions arise.” “Each, with the mind deluded by the habits he previously loved, comes to rest of his own accord, takes it for the ultimate place of return and peace, and declares himself fulfilled in unsurpassed bodhi.” “Do not let the demon of views make its own sinking calamity; keep them safe, pity and rescue them, dissolve their wrong conditions, and let their body and mind enter the Buddha’s knowing and seeing, so that from the beginning to accomplishment they meet no forking road.”

“If the aggregate of consciousness is ended, then the faculties now before you function for one another. From this functioning for one another one can enter the bodhisattva’s vajra dry wisdom. The perfectly bright essential mind brings forth its transformations within, like pure beryl holding a jeweled moon within it.” “And enters the Tathāgata’s sea of wondrous adornment; bodhi perfectly fulfilled, one returns to where nothing is gained!”

“These are the subtle doings of Māra, analyzed by the awakened brightness of the past Buddhas, the World-Honored Ones, in śamatha and vipaśyanā. When the demonic states appear, if you can recognize them, the grime of the mind is washed away and you do not fall into wrong views. The demons of the aggregates are extinguished, the Māra of the heavens is shattered, the mighty ghosts and spirits lose their souls and flee, and mountain-demons and the wangliang arise no more.” “If dull and stupid beings in the last age, who have not come to know dhyāna and do not know how to speak the Dharma, yet delight in cultivating samādhi, and you fear they will fall in with the deviant, then with one mind urge them to hold my Buddha-Crown dhāraṇī spell. If they cannot yet recite it, let them write it in the meditation hall or carry it on their bodies, and none of the Māras will be able to move them. You should reverently honor this final model, handed down by the Tathāgatas of the ten directions, for cultivation and advance to the very end!”

Ānanda’s Question

“As the Buddha has said, ‘among the marks of the five aggregates, five kinds of falsity are the mind of thought at their root,’ and we ordinarily have not received the Tathāgata’s detailed instruction. Further, are these five aggregates dissolved and removed together, or exhausted in sequence? What are the boundaries of these five layers? We only wish that the Tathāgata would send forth his great compassion, to clear the mind and eyes of this great assembly, and to be the eyes of the future for all beings of the last age!”

The Five False Thoughts

“The essential truth, wondrous brightness, original awakening, perfectly pure, does not retain death and birth or any dust and grime; even space arises through false thought. This original awakening, wondrous brightness, true essence, falsely brings forth the vessel-worlds, like Yajñadatta mistaking his head and recognizing a reflection. The false is originally without cause; within false thought the nature of causes and conditions is set up; those deluded about causes and conditions call it spontaneity.” “Causes and conditions, spontaneity, are all the calculation of beings’ false minds.” “Therefore the Tathāgata makes it clear to you: the root cause of the five aggregates is all alike false thought.”

“The cliff is not there and the vinegar has not come; if your body were not of the same kind as the falsely penetrating, how could water come into the mouth because vinegar is spoken of? Therefore you should know that your present body of form is called the solidified first false thought.” “Now before you, the beneficial and the harmful, these two appearances driving you on, are called the empty-bright second false thought.” “The mind arises and the body takes it up, responding to the thought: awake, it is the thinking mind; asleep, it is the dreams. So your thoughts and ideas, shaking and stirring false feelings, are called the fusing-and-penetrating third false thought.” “Nails grow and hair sprouts, vigor wastes and the face wrinkles, day and night succeeding one another, and you have never once been aware of it. Ānanda! If this is not you, how does your body change? If it must be the true you, how is it you are not aware? So all your formations, never stopping from thought to thought, are called the hidden-and-obscure fourth false thought.”

“Then within this essential clarity, limpid and unmoving, thought after thought receives the impress; how could it be reckoned? Ānanda, you should know: this limpidity is not the true; it is like swiftly flowing water, which from afar looks still: the flow is swift and unseen, but it is not that there is no flow.” “So within your present seeing, hearing, sensing, and knowing, the thread of habit is fine, and within the limpid clarity it is shadowy emptiness, the fifth inverted, subtle, essential thought.”

The Boundaries · Sudden and Gradual

“Only form and space are the boundary of form; only contact and separation are the boundary of feeling; only remembering and forgetting are the boundary of perception; only ceasing and arising are the boundary of formation; the limpid entering and merging with the limpid returns to the boundary of consciousness.”

“The source of these five aggregates arises layer upon layer: arising comes about through consciousness, ceasing is removed starting from form. In principle, sudden awakening: riding the awakening, all is dissolved together. In fact, not sudden removal: by sequence it is exhausted. I have already shown you the knots of the kerchief of the Kapāla deva; what is it you do not understand, that you ask again here?”

“So that they recognize the false, and a deep loathing arises of itself, and, knowing that there is nirvāṇa, they do not cling to the three realms.”

The Circulation

“One who can with a single thought open and show this Dharma-door to those not yet learned in the final kalpa, that person’s obstacles of offense will be extinguished with that thought. The causes of the hell-sufferings he was to receive will be changed into the Land of Peace and Bliss, and the merit he gains will surpass the previous giver’s a hundredfold, a thousandfold, a thousand-myriad-millionfold, and so on to what no counting or simile could reach.”

“If there are beings who can recite this sūtra and can hold this spell, were I to speak of them at length through kalpas on end I should not come to the end of it. Relying on my teaching, practicing the Way as taught, they go straight to the accomplishment of bodhi, with no more deeds of Māra.”

“When the Buddha had finished speaking this sūtra, the bhikṣus, bhikṣuṇīs, upāsakas, and upāsikās, all the world’s devas, humans, and asuras, and the bodhisattvas from other regions, the two vehicles, the holy immortal youths, and the mighty ghosts and spirits who had first set their minds on the Way, all greatly rejoiced, bowed, and withdrew.”