The Essence of the Heart Sutra
Chapter 8 The General Master Key (dhāraṇī) of Buddhist Practice and Realization
Sutra text: 【故知般若波罗蜜多。是大神咒。是大明咒。是无上咒。是无等等咒。能除一切苦。真实不虚。故说般若波罗蜜多咒。即说咒曰：揭谛揭谛。波罗揭谛。波罗僧揭谛。菩提萨婆诃。】
Section 1 The Tathāgatagarbha Is the Master Dhāraṇī of Buddhist Practice and Realization
Sutra text: 【故知般若波罗蜜多。是大神咒。是大明咒。是无上咒。是无等等咒。】
Here the World-Honored One praises the immeasurable merits of the tathāgatagarbha, revealing that the tathāgatagarbha is the general outline and master key (dhāraṇī) of the entire practice and realization of the Buddha's teachings, because only with the tathāgatagarbha as the principal subject can the Three Baskets and Twelve Divisions of the scriptures be derived, along with the immeasurable Buddha-lands of the ten directions and three times, as well as the five-aggregate worlds of sentient beings. The great wisdom of the tathāgatagarbha is beyond compare; He is a great divine dhāraṇī, possessing immeasurable miraculous powers and virtues.
He is formless and markless, truly empty, possessing nothing at all, yet He can employ His self-nature of the great-element characteristics to manifest countless oceans of worlds. He has no realm of the six faculties, no realm of the six sense-objects, no realm of the six consciousnesses; He has no five aggregates, no Four Noble Truths of the liberation path, no twelve links of dependent origination, nor the bodhisattva's six perfections; He has no worldly, supramundane, or transcendent wisdom of any kind; there is not a single dharma that can be spoken of, not a single dharma that can be obtained. Although He possesses nothing whatsoever, He can manifest immeasurable dharmas; there is not a single dharma that does not exist in dependence on Him, and not a single dharma that can escape beyond His mind-substance.
He Himself is formless and markless, untouchable and invisible, yet all dharmas with form and marks are manifested by Him; every dharma is provided for us by Him—He is so miraculous, so extraordinary. He provides us with mountains, rivers, and the great earth, provides us with the universe and starry skies, offers to us the Buddha-lands, provides us with the living environment of the three-realm world, and supports the living, working, and studying of our five aggregates—all dharmas are provided by Him. Whatever we need, He knows it; He knows every mental activity, and without our calling out, He will cooperate and strive to fulfill it. This "thing" that is not a thing is truly miraculous: without even a material particle the size of a mote of dust, He can manifest a trichiliocosm, manifest countless trichiliocosms; the entire void is contained within His mind, and every Buddha-land, every Buddha, is born from Him—utterly inconceivably miraculous. Therefore the tathāgatagarbha is a great divine dhāraṇī.
The tathāgatagarbha is the great bright dhāraṇī. This "bright" is opposed to ignorance (avidyā); the tathāgatagarbha has no ignorance, only the great wisdom of prajñā. Among the myriad dharmas of the world, He is not deluded about even a single dharma. He stores all the karmic seeds created by sentient beings, and then, in accordance with those karmic seeds, manifests the retributive five aggregates and eighteen realms, and manifests the circumstantial retributive living environment. He knows whether a human body or an animal body, a hungry-ghost body, should be created; He knows whether a deva or human body or a hell body should be created. He knows where the head should grow, where the nose should be, where the four limbs should be; what shape the physical body should be, how long, how short, how thick, what color—He knows it all and arranges everything perfectly, without the slightest disorder.
He will certainly present sentient beings' karma completely and without error; He will not, when a sentient being has created the karma of an animal, manifest a deva's physical body and living environment; nor will He, when a sentient being has cultivated the ten wholesome deeds and done good to accumulate virtue and should ascend to the heavens to enjoy blessings, create a hell body for him. He absolutely never allows cause and effect to be disordered, and has never once disordered them. When the tathāgatagarbha actualizes karmic retribution, He never errs; in creating the five aggregates and eighteen realms of sentient beings He does not err; in creating the circumstantial living environment of sentient beings He does not err. Whatever retribution a sentient being should undergo, He will surely create the corresponding environment and five-aggregate body; He manifests all of this entirely in accordance with the karmic conditions of sentient beings.
If there is an affinity with the Sahā world, He lets the five aggregates be born in the Sahā world and live within the Sahā world's environment. If one should ascend to the heavens to enjoy blessings, He lets the five aggregates be born in the deva realm. When the karmic conditions for the land of bliss (sukhāvatī) mature, He lets the five aggregates be born in the land of bliss, while also participating in manifesting the living environment of the land of bliss. When sentient beings are reborn at the time of death, the great lotus flower held in Avalokiteśvara Bodhisattva's hand is precisely what the tathāgatagarbha has created in accordance with the pure karma the sentient being has cultivated.
The tathāgatagarbha has great wisdom; there is not a single dharma of which He is not clear—He is truly the great bright dhāraṇī, the master key holding the five-aggregate worlds of sentient beings, holding the myriad dharmas of the three realms. He knows when sentient beings are born, He knows when sentient beings die; He knows the appearance of sentient beings' five aggregates, He knows sentient beings' circumstantial retribution. He knows sentient beings' mental activities, and He still knows sentient beings' karmic conditions. The tathāgatagarbha clearly understands sentient beings' mental activities: if a sentient being wants to go east, He knows it; if a sentient being wants to go west, He knows it too; if a sentient being wants to ascend to the heavens, He knows; if a sentient being wants to descend into the earth, He also knows. Whether sentient beings want food, clothing, shelter, or use, He knows it all; there is not a single dharma He does not know, and after knowing, He will comply and cooperate.
He also has things He does not know: He does not know the six sense-object realms; He does not discern form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas. When form comes, He does not know what form; when sound comes, He does not know what sound; when taste comes, He does not know what taste; when touch comes, He does not know what kind of touch. Therefore, toward any realm, He is not greedy or defiled—suchness is immovable (tathatā-acalita). But He is not completely unknowing either; otherwise He would have no way to manifest. Although He has no concepts of the six sense-objects, He knows the seeds of the six sense-objects, and in accordance with the seeds and karmic conditions He manifests the six sense-objects that sentient beings need. When the eyes see a flower, He, relying on the external flower, manifests the image of the flower like a mirror reflecting an image, supplying what we need; the inner six sense-objects discerned by the six consciousnesses are all manifested by Him in this way. But the tathāgatagarbha is not completely unknowing; He has the dharmas He knows, the portion of content He discerns—therefore the tathāgatagarbha is the great bright dhāraṇī.
The tathāgatagarbha is the unsurpassed dhāraṇī, the dhāraṇī without equal. In the world and beyond the world there is no dharma higher or more noble than the tathāgatagarbha, no dharma more surpassing than the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is the root of the life of all sentient beings, the source of the myriad dharmas. The tathāgatagarbha is the Dharmakāya Buddha (dharma-kāya-buddha); the Dharmakāya Buddha is the most honored and most noble, the one without equal; the perfectly endowed Sambhogakāya Buddha (saṃbhoga-kāya-buddha) and the purified Nirmāṇakāya Buddha (nirmāṇa-kāya-buddha) that exist in dependence on the Dharmakāya are likewise the most honored and without equal. If someone claims that his own practice is higher than the Buddha's, and that sentient beings who study Buddhism should first take refuge in him and only afterward take refuge in the Buddha, such thinking is ignorance, inversion, and delusion.
The tathāgatagarbha alone is honored and supreme in the three realms, having no companion among the myriad dharmas; nothing is equal to the tathāgatagarbha, let alone above Him. No dharma in the world can be compared with the tathāgatagarbha, so to describe the mind-substance of the tathāgatagarbha, one truly cannot find anything similar to use as an analogy, because even whatever one might find would belong to the false dharmas within the three-realm world; the tathāgatagarbha does not belong to the dharmas of the three realms, and nothing is equal or similar to Him. Truly having no alternative, sometimes the void is used as a metaphor, but it can only illustrate that the tathāgatagarbha is as pure and unconditioned as the void, as unmoved by the six sense-object realms as the void. But the void is inert emptiness (jaḍa-śūnyatā), a false dharma containing nothing at all, whereas the tathāgatagarbha has a real self-nature and function.
Although the tathāgatagarbha has no marks, He is a truly existent dharma, a dharma of ultimate reality. The void is not the same as the tathāgatagarbha; if one says the void is the tathāgatagarbha, that is the heretical doctrine of the void, not what the Buddha taught. Many people who study the Buddha's teachings misunderstand the dharma-meaning the Buddha taught, yet believe they understand it, and then expound it according to their own misunderstanding, thereby turning the Buddha's dharma into a heterodox dharma. With insufficient merit and wisdom, one will misinterpret the sutra's meaning; taking one's own interpretation as the Buddha's meaning is slandering the Buddha and slandering the Dharma. The meaning of the Buddha's dharma is profound and again profound; it is not something that people of shallow wisdom and meager merit (alpa-puṇya) can penetrate.
Section 2 Relying on the Tathāgatagarbha, All Suffering Can Be Eliminated
Sutra text: 【（故知般若波罗蜜多）能除一切苦。真实不虚。】 Why can prajñāpāramitā eliminate all suffering? Because this prajñāpāramitā is not on this shore of birth-and-death; He has no birth, and therefore no suffering of old age, sickness, and death. Moreover, because the tathāgatagarbha has no five aggregates of clinging and does not face the six sense-object realms, He has no feeling at all—whence would suffering come? The three-realm world, for Him, simply does not exist; therefore He does not perceive any worldly feeling of suffering. After realizing the tathāgatagarbha, the five-aggregate body and mind rely on the tathāgatagarbha, and suffering is gradually extinguished, until finally, upon becoming a Buddha, all suffering is eliminated and one realizes permanence, bliss, self, and purity.
That the tathāgatagarbha has no feeling of suffering is true, not false; the bliss of quiescence at the Buddha-ground is true, not false. The false five aggregates have the three sufferings; what suffers is not the self, because it is not real; the real self—the tathāgatagarbha—has no suffering. The false self of the five aggregates arises and ceases, changes, and is impermanent; the impermanent is suffering, and what suffers is not the self. The substance of the tathāgatagarbha abides permanently and unchangingly, therefore it has no suffering; what has no suffering is the self, and the self does not suffer. Therefore, the mind that can feel suffering is the arising-and-ceasing deluded mind, not the true mind. The deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses relies on the true mind of the tathāgatagarbha, gradually reaches the unconditioned, extinguishes the old karmic seeds of suffering stored in the tathāgatagarbha, and no longer accumulates new seeds of unwholesome karma; the karmic retribution of suffering in the five aggregates then becomes ever less, until finally all suffering can be eliminated. Therefore the tathāgatagarbha can eliminate all suffering—true, not false.
Section 3 The Heart Mantra in the Heart Sutra
The heart mantra in the Heart Sutra: 【揭谛。揭谛。般罗揭谛。般罗僧揭谛。菩提莎婆诃！】
Finally, the World-Honored One gives the summary, proclaiming the prajñāpāramitā dhāraṇī; this mantra is the master dhāraṇī of the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra is the classic that describes the overall appearance of the tathāgatagarbha; the tathāgatagarbha is the general outline and core of the Three Baskets and Twelve Divisions; without the tathāgatagarbha there would be no Three Baskets and Twelve Divisions. Out of great compassion for sentient beings, Śākyamuni, the World-Honored One, flowed forth the Three Baskets and Twelve Divisions from His own mind's suchness, using them to gather in and guide immeasurable sentient beings back to the Buddha's dharma, to attain liberation and reach ultimate nirvāṇa. And the Heart Sutra is the master key (dhāraṇī) of the Three Baskets and Twelve Divisions, comprehensively describing the entire principle of practice and realization, from the beginning of a ordinary person's cultivation all the way to buddhahood.
The World-Honored One also summarized the Heart Sutra into a mantra to encapsulate and condense the content of the entire Heart Sutra; this mantra is the Heart Sutra's master dhāraṇī. All sutras and mantras exist in dependence on the tathāgatagarbha; every Buddha relies on this ocean of great perfect awakening to expound immeasurable buddha-dharmas and liberate immeasurable sentient beings. When the Buddha proclaims a mantra in certain sutras, that mantra represents the master key of the entire sutra, summarizing the full content of that sutra; it is also called dhāraṇī.
The content of the Heart Sutra's master dhāraṇī: "揭谛。揭谛。般罗揭谛。般罗僧揭谛。菩提莎婆诃！" This mantra is a phonetic transliteration of ancient Indian Sanskrit, corresponding to two meanings in modern Chinese. One is: "Come, come! Come quickly to the other shore! Come quickly to the other shore of nirvāṇa! Quickly accomplish the perfectly complete and ultimate great bodhi path!" The other meaning is: "Come, come! Take refuge in pāramitā! Transform the basis to pāramitā! Then one can ultimately accomplish the perfectly complete and ultimate great bodhi path!" Both meanings, both translations, accord with the meaning of the mantra.
In studying and practicing Buddhism, one begins with blind faith in the Three Jewels, then reverent faith, then admiring faith, and then correct faith in the Three Jewels; then one begins to cultivate prajñāpāramitā, after which one will realize the tathāgatagarbha. As we increasingly engage in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and come to know the various conditioned and unconditioned self-natures of the tathāgatagarbha, the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses will transform the basis accordingly, and one will come to possess the bodhisattva's compassion, vow-mind, and unconditioned mind-nature; after the seeds of the mind-ground are purified, one will attain the Buddha-fruit and realize the ultimate great nirvāṇa.
The unconditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha is manifested in that He has no nature of seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing; toward the six sense-object realms He does not discriminate, does not stir thoughts, is not greedy or defiled, does not grasp (upādāna), and creates no karma of greed, hatred, or delusion whatsoever. The conditioned nature of the tathāgatagarbha is manifested in that He can perfectly accomplish all dharmas, manifesting sentient beings' five aggregates, eighteen realms, and material world, yet without clinging to an "I" that does so, without seeking any reward—a complete selflessness. When the tathāgatagarbha accomplishes the six consciousnesses' discrimination of the six sense-object dharmas, His own mind remains pure and unconditioned.
The tathāgatagarbha not only gives (dāna) us the six faculties, but also gives us the six sense-objects, and further gives us the six consciousnesses; only then can we have all the activities of the five aggregates and be complete, normal people. The tathāgatagarbha accomplishes all this by means of the five universal mental factors: when He contacts form, He first directs attention (manaskāra), drawing the mind toward the form sense-object; then He contacts the form sense-object, receives it, and discerns it (not the discernment of the six consciousnesses); finally He determines and manifests. The entire process is completed with extreme speed, very refined and precise. When we contact a tree, He manifests the tree's image; when we contact a flower, He manifests the flower's image; when we contact a person, He manifests the person's image—yet He always manifests faithfully according to karmic retribution, without selfish intent, without personal bias, impartial and selfless.
The tathāgatagarbha is like a camera, converting external form-realm objects into images for us to discriminate. The tathāgatagarbha has the seeds of the four great elements and can directly contact external form sense-objects; through the eye faculty and visual nerves these are transmitted to the supreme faculty (indriya), generating the inner object-aspect (nimitta) form sense-object. When the supreme faculty contacts the inner object-aspect, the tathāgatagarbha produces the eye consciousness, and simultaneously the mind consciousness also arises; the eye consciousness and mind consciousness then contact the inner object-aspect and begin to discern, knowing this is a tree, this is a flower, that is a person; after discrimination, feelings arise. All the form sense-objects—people, things, and events—that we see are images manifested by the tathāgatagarbha; therefore the myriad dharmas are false and illusory, like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows. When we see a person, what we actually see is that person's shadow, yet we have always mistakenly taken it as real, giving rise to various wrong views and feelings, not knowing that we are making various discriminations and deliberations (manasikāra) toward illusory shadows in empty space; therefore sentient beings have all kinds of inversions and constantly undergo the suffering of birth-and-death in saṃsāra.
It is the same when we hear sounds: the tathāgatagarbha directly contacts sound sense-objects through the ear faculty, converting external sound sense-objects into false inner object-aspect sound sense-objects; then, through the discrimination of the ear consciousness and mind consciousness, we hear the sounds. Likewise, the smell objects, taste objects, touch objects, and dharma objects discerned by the nose, tongue, and body consciousnesses, and even the mind consciousness, are not real external realms; they are all shadows of the inner six sense-objects manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. Since beginningless kalpas, we have never contacted real external realms; everything we contact is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. This is the true meaning of "the myriad dharmas are created by the mind alone"; "All marks are false and illusory" also speaks of this principle.
The tathāgatagarbha thus accomplishes sentient beings' five aggregates and eighteen realms; although He accomplishes all dharmas, in His mind there is ultimately no self—He is both conditioned and unconditioned. In studying and practicing Buddhism, what we must do is transform the basis to His selfless nature, benefiting and delighting sentient beings forever without resentment or regret. Although the tathāgatagarbha can conditionally create all dharmas, His self-nature is utterly pure, neither greedy for, weary of, clinging to, nor abandoning any dharma. When we transform the basis to this pure, unconditioned substance-nature within His conditioned dharmas, the mind of the seven consciousnesses will gradually wash away all defilement. When the eyes see form, it is enough to know what form sense-object it is—do not again give rise to mental activities such as greed and hatred; when the ears hear sound, it is enough to know what sound it is—do not give rise to mental activities of aversion or delight; this is transforming the basis to the purity of the tathāgatagarbha. As long as the six faculties face the six sense-objects, the six consciousnesses will arise to discriminate the six sense-objects; knowing the falsity of the six sense-objects, do not again stir thoughts, do not falsely give rise to various deliberations, do not calculate personal gain and loss, and face and handle all people, events, and things with an undefiled mind—this is practice.
Even if the transformation of the basis (āśraya-parāvṛtti) succeeds, the discriminating nature of the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses still exists; otherwise one could not practice, work, and live. Even a Buddha must discriminate the six sense-object realms, because the Nirmāṇakāya Buddha and the manifested Buddha must also respond to the six sense-object realms; if one were completely ignorant of the six sense-objects, there would be no way to liberate sentient beings. But the Buddha's mind of the seven consciousnesses no longer has ignorance or defilement, being completely as pure as the substance of the tathāgatagarbha itself. When we transform the basis to the purity and equality of the tathāgatagarbha, we must also transform the basis to the tathāgatagarbha's selfless spirit of dedication. He gives (dāna) us all dharmas: if the five aggregates are needed, He gives the five aggregates; if the six faculties are needed, He gives the six faculties; if the six sense-objects are needed, He gives the six sense-objects; if the six consciousnesses are needed, He gives the six consciousnesses—yet He seeks no reward whatsoever, asking nothing of us. We should learn from Him: liberate sentient beings without seeking reward; then the speed of accumulating merit will actually become ever faster.
The merits of the tathāgatagarbha are immeasurable and boundless. After enlightenment, through bit-by-bit contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) and study, the mind of the seven consciousnesses will gradually transform the basis; as defilement decreases, the mind-nature changes, and after the complete transformation of the basis, one becomes a Buddha. In studying and practicing Buddhism, one must every day confront conditions and objects, comparing them against the self-nature of the tathāgatagarbha, perfuming and transforming the seeds of one's own mind, until all ignorance is completely removed and the seeds are thoroughly purified—only then is the practice of three great immeasurable kalpas complete.
When a bodhisattva completes the ten stages of faith and enters the first abode stage, he begins to cultivate the six pāramitās through the outer gate; at the seventh abode, he sees the mind and attains enlightenment, entering the inner gate to cultivate the six pāramitās; after completing the three wise stages of the ten abodes, ten practices, and ten dedications, the general-characteristic and particular-characteristic wisdom of prajñā is complete, and he enters the first bhūmi to cultivate the wisdom of the varieties of paths. After completing the ten bhūmis, he becomes an equal-enlightenment-stage bodhisattva; the equal-enlightenment-stage bodhisattva cultivates merit for a hundred kalpas, and when merit is complete he becomes a bodhisattva of the wondrous-enlightenment stage in his final body, waiting in the Tuṣita heaven for the right season and conditions to descend and become a Buddha. Throughout the bodhisattva's fifty-two stages, across three great immeasurable kalpas, what he relies on, depends on, realizes, cultivates, and studies is the self-natured pure mind—the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha. Throughout the three great immeasurable kalpas, the bodhisattva must traverse immeasurable Buddha-lands, drawing near to and making offerings to immeasurable, countless Buddhas and bodhisattvas; yet all of this is illusory activity performed within his own suchness Dharmakāya. All the wisdom the bodhisattva studies and cultivates is originally complete within his own tathāgatagarbha; the tathāgatagarbha is the most ultimate and perfectly complete true Buddha. To study the Heart Sutra is to hold this mantra: "Study the tathāgatagarbha, realize the tathāgatagarbha, transform the basis to the tathāgatagarbha—only then can one become the perfectly complete Buddha, perfectly accomplish omniscience (sarvākārajñatā), and reach ultimate nirvāṇa!"
