瑜伽師地論 義疏通講 · 冊8

A Consciousness-Only reading. The eighth stage, "with mind," and the ninth, "without mind," the treatise does not expound apart, but "together" — for to draw the line clearly between "with mind" and "without mind," one must first ask a single question: this "without mind" you speak of, which kind of "without" is it? In one stroke the treatise offers five measuring-rods (five gates), and measures the five senses of "without mind" clear, layer by layer; and the last rod measures out precisely the store consciousness, that "bottom of the mind." The hard points are all spoken in words the treatise itself already has; nothing is added out of the air. Stage 08 (with mind) is the home of the joint discussion; Stage 09 (without mind) is just the "without mind" face of it.

One · First, a Single Question: Why Should "With Mind, Without Mind" Take Five Gates, Rather Than Be Settled in a Sentence?

Because the word "without mind" is far too easy to blur. A sleeping person, a person in a faint, a practitioner who has entered the attainment of no-perception, an arhat who has realized nirvāṇa without remaining basis — every one of them may be said to be "without mind," yet these four "without minds" are not one and the same thing at all. The treatise knows this ambiguity through and through, and so it gives no vague single definition, but sets out five measuring-rods: "these two stages are both to be known in their characteristics through five gates" — the setting-forth of the stages, whether the mind is disordered or not, whether [mind] arises or not, phase, and the ultimate truth. One and the same person, one and the same state, measured by a different rod, yields a different answer to "with mind" or "without mind." To read this stage is to learn to take these five rods and measure "without mind" precisely.

Two · The Five Rods That Measure "Without Mind"

The first rod · the gate of the setting-forth of the stages (by which stage a state belongs to): the Stage Associated with the Five Sense-Consciousnesses, the Stage of the Mental, the Stage with Both Applied and Sustained Thought, and the Stage with Sustained Thought Only — these four are, without exception, stages with mind. Within the Stage with Neither Applied nor Sustained Thought, only "the attainment of no-perception, birth in no-perception, and the attainment of cessation" are singled out and counted as stages without mind; the rest remains with mind. This is the plainest of the rods — dividing by the belonging of the meditative states.

The second rod · the gate of disordered-or-not (by inversion or not): this rod is the most peculiar of all. A mind that the four inversions (the inversion of permanence-pleasure-self-purity) have inverted is called a "disordered mind"; and the treatise says, "the disordered mind is also named 'no mind,' because its very nature has been lost and ruined" — an inverted, disordered mind counts as "without mind" too, because it has lost the original nature of mind. The treatise even cites the world's own saying: "it is as when the world, seeing a person whose mind is deranged, straightaway says, 'This person is a mindless person.'" What this rod measures is not "has the mind stopped?" but "has the mind been ruined?" — an inverted, deluded mind, though it is stirring, is already no longer a "mind in its right state," and so it too is named "without mind." This alerts us: "without mind" carries one layer that means "a lost mind, a ruined mind," not only "the mind does not arise."

The third rod · the gate of arising-or-not (by whether the mind can arise or cannot): for the mind to arise, the many conditions must be complete; the treatise lists eight causes and conditions that keep the mind from arising — the faculty is impaired, the object is not present, attention is lacking, [the attainment] has not been gained, [something] is contrary, [the seed] has been cut off, [the prior thought] has ceased, and [this thought] has already arisen. If any one of the eight falls to the "not-arising" side, that is at once the stage without mind; when the eight are contrary and the mind does arise, that is the stage with mind. This rod carries on the principle laid down in the Stage of the Mental — the faculty unimpaired, the object present, attention properly arisen, and only then does consciousness arise — following it right through, restoring "with mind" to the momentary matter of "the many conditions making the mind appear."

The fourth rod · the gate of phase (by the phase or position one is in): apart from six phases, all the rest is with mind. Which six are without mind? The phase of mindless sleep, the phase of mindless swoon, the phase of the attainment of no-perception, the phase of birth in no-perception, the phase of the attainment of cessation, and the phase of the sphere of nirvāṇa without remaining basis. Sleeping without a dream, fainting past all awareness, entering the attainment of no-perception, being born in the heaven of no-perception, entering the attainment of cessation, realizing nirvāṇa without remaining basis — in these six states the mind (of the first six consciousnesses) does not operate, and so [each] is named without mind. This is the most often cited of the rods.

Three · The Point of the Eye for the Whole Piece: The Gate of the Ultimate Truth — True "Without Mind" Is Nirvāṇa Alone, and the Store Consciousness Is the Bottom of the Mind

The first four rods still measure at the level of "phenomena." The fifth rod · the gate of the ultimate truth sets the rod at the ultimate place, and there sets forth the deepest Consciousness-Only meaning of the whole passage: the treatise says, "only within the sphere of nirvāṇa without remaining basis is there the stage without mind." Why it alone? Because "within this sphere the store consciousness too is forever extinguished." As for all those other "without mind" states — the attainment of no-perception, the attainment of cessation, sleep, swoon — the treatise breaks it open in a single line: "as for all the remaining phases, they are named the stage without mind [only] because the turning consciousnesses have ceased; the store consciousness has not been forever and completely extinguished, and so, by the ultimate truth, they are not [truly] the stage without mind."

This one line is one of the most crucial pillars in all of Consciousness-Only learning. It says: those six phases of "without mind" are in fact only a case of the "turning consciousnesses" (the first seven consciousnesses) having stopped — it is not that there is truly no consciousness at all; the store consciousness is still there, and has not been forever extinguished. So, seen by the ultimate truth (ultimate reality), they are not truly without mind; the true and thorough "without mind" is at one place alone — nirvāṇa without remaining basis, because there alone the store consciousness too is forever extinguished.

Put another way, the treatise here proves, in reverse, the existence of the store consciousness: when a person enters the attainment of cessation or the attainment of no-perception, the first six consciousnesses have plainly all been cut off, yet he has not died, and on emerging from the attainment his life and memory continue on as before — on what does this rest? On precisely that store consciousness which was not cut off. "Without mind" is almost never "without a store consciousness," but only "without the turning consciousnesses"; the store consciousness is the bottom that runs through every "without mind" state and holds up the continuity of life. The Two Stages, With Mind and Without Mind, use this last rod to bring the store consciousness quietly out onto the stage — and this is exactly the weight the passage carries within the Consciousness-Only treasury of treatises.

Four · The Purport of This Stage

The Two Stages, With Mind and Without Mind, are, among the seventeen stages, the one pass that deals expressly with "the presence or absence of mind." Their skill lies not in bulk but in "precision" — using five rods to measure a blurry "without mind" into five clear, distinct senses: by stage, by inversion, by arising-or-not, by phase, by the ultimate truth. And measured to the end, the five rods measure out one and the same conclusion: apart from nirvāṇa without remaining basis, all so-called "without mind" is only the turning consciousnesses momentarily halted, with the store consciousness still there. Consciousness may cut off the six, may cut off the seven, yet there is one bottom that cannot be cut off — until the ultimate nirvāṇa. Only by recognizing this bottom does one truly understand "with mind" and "without mind."

Carrying Forward

The gate of the ultimate truth · true "without mind" is nirvāṇa without remaining basis alone (where the store consciousness too is forever extinguished) · in the remaining phases the turning consciousnesses cease while the store consciousness does not → the scriptural-and-treatise proof for the existence of the store consciousness (carrying forward the all-seeds store consciousness of the Stage of the Mental, 02–03; opening the way to the Cheng Weishi Lun's proof of the store consciousness by five scriptures and ten reasons, and to the proof that there is consciousness in the attainment of cessation). The gate of arising-or-not · the eight causes and conditions → the establishment of the many conditions of the mind's arising (carrying forward the Stage of the Mental / the threefold subsuming of "faculty, object, attention · and only then does consciousness arise," 02–05). The six phases without mind of the gate of phase (the attainment of no-perception, the attainment of cessation, …) → the two mindless attainments of the Stage of Meditative Equipoise (06) and the cultivation-and-realization of the attainment of cessation in the Śrāvaka Stage (13). The four inversions of the gate of disordered-or-not → the inversion of the Stage of the Mental's "unwise attention" (03–04) and the four foundations of mindfulness that heal inversion in the Śrāvaka Stage.