The Profound Meaning of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sutra from the Consciousness-Only Perspective (Second Edition)
Chapter Seven True Faith Is Rare, Six
Original text of the Diamond Sutra: 须菩提白佛言。世尊。颇有众生得闻如是言说章句。生实信不。佛告须菩提。莫作是说。如来灭后。后五百岁。有持戒修福者。于此章句。能生信心。以此为实。当知是人。不于一佛二佛。三四五佛而种善根。已于无量千万佛所。种诸善根。
Explanation: Subhūti said to the Buddha: World-Honored One, are there really sentient beings who, upon hearing such words and passages, can genuinely accept them with faith? The Buddha told Subhūti: Do not speak this way. In the last five hundred years after the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa, there will be those who uphold the precepts and cultivate merit, who will be able to give rise to pure faith in these passages of dharma principle, regarding them as true and believable. You should know that such a person has not planted roots of goodness under just one Buddha, two Buddhas, three, four, or five Buddhas, but has already planted roots of goodness at the places of immeasurable thousands and myriads of Buddhas.
In the previous section, the World-Honored One taught: All marks are false and illusory; if one sees that all marks are not marks, then one sees the Tathāgata. Upon hearing this, Subhūti gave rise to doubt, wondering whether sentient beings, upon hearing such profound passages and principles, could genuinely accept them with faith. This question was raised very aptly. Because sentient beings differ in the sharpness or dullness of their faculties, and differ in merit and wisdom, their acceptance of the Dharma also differs. Sentient beings of meager merit (alpa-puṇya) and dull faculties find it very difficult to accept the true great Dharma, and often give rise to doubt and slander. Such things have happened since ancient times—did not five thousand disciples withdraw from the assembly at the Lotus Sutra (Saddharma-puṇḍarīka Sūtra) gathering because they would not accept the Mahāyāna? This is also a normal phenomenon; throughout kalpas there have been instances of slandering the Dharma by those who would not accept the Dharma of ultimate reality. Because sentient beings have not severed their fetters and bonds, they constantly give rise to wrong views (mithyā-dṛṣṭi) such as the view of self, the view of grasping views, and the view of doubt; lacking correct knowledge and views, slandering the Dharma and disbelieving is inevitable.
The view of self is the view that takes the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) and eighteen realms as the self, believing this self to be real and the functions of the five aggregates to be real. The view of grasping views is when sentient beings take their own views as primary—regardless of whether they are correct, they will not accept others' views even when those are correct. Moreover, because sentient beings have not realized the mind of ultimate reality (dharmatā-citta), their various views and opinions about the mundane and supramundane are all wrong, deviant, and incorrect, such as the sixty-two views of the non-Buddhists. The view of doubt is when sentient beings cannot make correct judgments and cognitions about correct dharma principles and good spiritual teachers, harboring knots of doubt in their minds. Because these fetters tightly bind sentient beings, they cannot free themselves from ignorance. Add to this that sentient beings' conditions of merit are not complete, and it is hard for them to avoid slandering the Dharma and the Three Jewels—how much more so in the Dharma-ending age.
The World-Honored One's true Dharma lasts one thousand years, the semblance Dharma one thousand years, and the Dharma-ending age ten thousand years. The "last five hundred years after the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa" may refer to the five hundred years before the Dharma-ending age approaches its end, when few will uphold the precepts and cultivate merit. If there are any, they must be people of very deep roots of goodness and merit, who, upon seeing passages such as the Diamond Sutra's teaching that breaks through the Tathāgata's bodily marks and breaks through all dharma-marks, can believe without doubt and praise the Tathāgata's teaching as true—that person must be rare and hard to encounter. Whoever accepts with faith the passages and principles in the Diamond Sutra is a person of true faith.
Attaining true faith is extremely difficult. On the bodhisattva's path of study and practice, one has already passed through the stage of cultivating the ten faiths, entered the stage of the ten abodes of cultivating merit, upholding precepts, cultivating patience, meditation (samādhi), and wisdom, completed the four applications of vigor—heat, peak, patience, and the supreme worldly dharma—and the provisions for bodhi are complete, breaking through all false marks and realizing entry into ultimate reality. This requires dozens, hundreds, thousands of kalpas, or even longer eons of steeping in and cultivating the Buddha-dharma, thereby acquiring correct views. In the course of this, one must inevitably have made offerings to and passed by countless Buddhas, having already listened to sūtras and heard the Dharma at the places of immeasurable thousands and myriads of Buddhas, planted roots of goodness, and accumulated merit—something that cannot be accomplished in short kalpas. Of the countless sentient beings who resolve to cultivate the path, only a very few reach this stage. So it is not surprising to see that most people are still at the beginner stage. Cultivating the Buddha-way is extremely difficult, only because one has transmigrated through birth and death for immeasurable kalpa after immeasurable kalpa, with ignorance deeply rooted and roots of goodness shallow—a few days of sunshine cannot melt long-accumulated hard ice.
Original text of the Diamond Sutra: 闻是章句。乃至一念。生净信者。须菩提。如来悉知悉见。是诸众生。得如是无量福德。
Explanation: Those who hear such passages and give rise to even a single thought of pure faith—the Tathāgata knows them all and sees them all, and these sentient beings attain such immeasurable merit.
The Buddha is also called the person who possesses omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā) in full, with merit and wisdom both perfectly complete, fully knowing all mundane and supramundane dharmas, fully knowing all the seeds and functions contained within the tathāgatagarbha—knowing not a single dharma that is unknown, hence called omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). This wisdom is so subtle that when it rains simultaneously in all worlds of the ten directions, the Buddha knows the exact number of raindrops. One world contains one billion four-continent systems, one billion great oceans, one billion Mount Sumerus, one billion six heavens of the desire realm, one billion first-dhyāna heavens, and countless heavens of the second dhyāna and above. How many celestial bodies there are in the ten directions, over how vast an extent, and the number of raindrops falling—the Buddha knows them all. The Buddha's wisdom is so subtle that when any sentient being in all worlds of the ten directions gives rise to a single thought, the Buddha knows it, while sentient beings themselves often do not even notice their own thoughts—only after reciting the Buddha's name or reciting sūtras for a long time do they discover they have been having wandering thoughts all along. Whatever the manas grasps at, the mind chases after—like a monkey and a horse, very hard to subdue.
How many sentient beings are there in the worlds of the ten directions? On this one celestial body of our Earth there are roughly over seven billion humans. How many animals are there? Too many to count. When a fish spawns, it may produce thousands upon thousands of offspring; in a square meter of land there are countless ants, and various insects and bacteria are even more impossible to count. Bacteria grow everywhere—every inch of our skin's surface is covered with bacteria; the nine orifices and the secretions that flow out, such as tears and sweat, are all bacteria; peel back the skin, and the muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, blood, brain matter, and internal organs inside are all bacteria—nowhere is without them.
The Buddhist sūtras say these bacteria have three heads and six arms, are of many colors and strange shapes, killing and devouring one another. If their numbers and species become unbalanced, we fall ill—skin diseases are just like this. So when using medicine to kill bacteria, another portion of beneficial bacteria is killed, and one contracts another illness. As for ghost and spirit beings, they are everywhere—wild mountains and remote wildernesses, riversides and forest edges, crossroads everywhere; even on a single blade of small grass, beings without merit attach themselves. In the Śūraṅgama Sūtra the World-Honored One said: A pure monk walking along a path does not tread on living grass, let alone pull it out by hand. Beings without merit take a single blade of grass as their home, dwelling upon it; if it is trampled or pulled out by hand, the home of those beings is destroyed. Add to this the beings in the hells, the asura class of beings, and non-human beings—this is how many beings there are in one small world. How many, then, in one great trichiliocosm, in the great trichiliocosms of the ten directions?
With so many sentient beings, whenever each sentient being gives rise to a thought, the Buddha knows it. Therefore, when a sentient being's conditions ripen and roots of goodness mature, the Buddha knows it and will arrange the corresponding conditions to deliver them. So if someone hears the passages in the Diamond Sutra and gives rise to a single thought of pure faith, the Tathāgata naturally knows and sees it completely. For each sentient being, through beginningless kalpas, in which realm they were born, what karmic actions they performed, what retribution they received, how many roots of goodness they planted, how much merit they accumulated, and when they can enter the path and attain the way—the Buddha knows it all.
Original text of the Diamond Sutra: 何以故。是诸众生。无复我相人相众生相寿者相。无法相亦无非法相。
Explanation: Why is this said? Because these sentient beings can be free from attachment to the Tathāgata's bodily marks, knowing that all marks are false and illusory, and have long since had no mark of self, no mark of person, no mark of sentient being, and no mark of life span. They first broke through the four marks, and then further broke through all dharma-marks, cultivating until the mind has no dharma-mark and also no non-dharma-mark.
Dharmas are divided into conditioned dharmas and unconditioned dharmas, dharmas arising from conditions and dharmas not arising from conditions. The five aggregates are dharmas, the eighteen realms are dharmas, the three realms are all dharmas, and suchness (tathatā) is also a dharma. Whatever can be cognized by people is a dharma—whether visible or invisible, existence is dharma. There are true dharmas and false dharmas, arising-and-ceasing dharmas and non-arising-non-ceasing dharmas, dharmas formed by causes and conditions and dharmas that exist innately and are not formed by causes and conditions—distinguished from every angle and every aspect.
Dharmas include dharmas of conditions and dharmas not of conditions. Dharmas of conditions are emptiness/voidness (śūnyatā), that is, false; dharmas not of conditions are dharmas that exist from the beginning, that is, true dharmas, indestructible dharmas. Whatever dharma directly points to the attainment of buddhahood is the ultimate dharma; the dharma of seeing the mind and seeing the nature, the dharma of suchness (tathatā), is the ultimate dharma, while the methods for reaching the ultimate dharma are expedient dharmas. The dharma-mark is existence; the non-dharma-mark is emptiness. Those who can give rise to a single thought of pure faith in the passages of the Diamond Sutra have not only broken through the four marks, but have also broken through the dharma-mark and the non-dharma-mark.
Original text of the Diamond Sutra: 何以故。是诸众生若心取相。即为著我人众生寿者。若取法相。即著我人众生寿者。若取非法相。即著我人众生寿者。是故不应取法。不应取非法。
Explanation: Why is this said? Because if these sentient beings take a mark in their minds, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they take the dharma-mark, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span; if they take the non-dharma-mark, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. Therefore one should not take dharma, and should not take non-dharma.
If sentient beings take a mark in their minds—whatever mark it may be—because there is a self doing the taking of the mark, they are attached to the four marks. If sentient beings take the mark of the existence of dharmas, because there is a self doing the taking of the mark, they are attached to the four marks. If sentient beings take the mark of the non-existence of dharmas, because there is a self taking the mark of non-existence, they are attached to the four marks. Whether sentient beings take the mark of dharmas existing or not existing, it is a self taking the mark, so all are attachments to the four marks.
The dharma-mark is the existence of dharmas in the three realms; the three realms exist in dependence on sentient beings' cognition—only with a self can one cognize the dharma-marks of the three realms. So if one takes the dharma-mark, believing all dharmas have marks of existence, one is attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If one takes the non-dharma-mark, believing all dharmas are empty, nonexistent, without dharma-marks, one is likewise attached to the four marks.
Why do those with a single thought of pure faith have no four marks, no dharma-mark, and no non-dharma-mark?
Those who have pure faith in the Buddha's teaching that "if one sees that all marks are not marks, then one sees the Tathāgata" have extremely deep faculties of faith, having already planted deep roots of goodness and merit at the places of immeasurable thousands and myriads of Buddhas. Only those who have realized the vajra mind (vajra-citta) and emptied the four marks and the dharma-marks can attain pure faith; only after realization can they be without doubt about the dharma-mark and non-dharma-mark, and only then is their faith pure. Faith that is verified through realization is pure faith; faith before realization contains varying degrees of doubt and is not pure. After realizing the vajra mind (vajra-citta), the mind will have no mark of self, no mark of person, no mark of sentient being, and no mark of life span, for one directly observes that these marks are all false marks conjured up by the vajra mind (vajra-citta), and are therefore all empty.
The four marks are relatively coarse and shallow, and the wisdom of observation required need not be too deep and subtle. The dharma-marks are even more subtle than the four marks, requiring deeper and subtler wisdom of observation. Therefore the wisdom of no-four-marks is shallower than the wisdom of no-dharma-mark, belonging to the prajñā wisdom of the three stages of worthies, while having no dharma-mark and no non-dharma-mark belongs to the consciousness-only seed-wisdom attained after entering the bhūmis. The four marks fall within the scope of sentient beings' five aggregates (pañca-skandha); the dharma-marks, though not exceeding the scope of the five aggregates, are extremely subtle and hard to observe—for example, all worldly customs and mores, all rules, regulations, laws and institutions, all human codes of conduct and norms, humanity's various ideas and concepts, the academic and technical knowledge of every discipline and field, all phenomena of the natural world, as well as the various cultivation principles, concepts, ideas, and cognitions within Buddhism—these dharma-marks are too many, too broad, deep, and subtle; many cannot even be articulated, and all belong to the category of consciousness-only seed-wisdom. And these dharma-marks are all non-dharma-marks, merely called dharma-marks.
Those who can give rise to a single thought of pure faith in the Buddha's profound dharma principles have in their minds not only no four marks, but have also broken through the dharma-marks, and moreover have broken through even the non-dharma-mark; their minds are extremely pure, taking and attaching to no marks whatsoever, with wisdom extremely deep and sharp. Ordinary beings who have not broken through the four marks, though they also believe the Buddha's profound dharma principles, have doubts in their minds because they have not realized it; their faith is not verified faith, so it is not very pure. Bodhisattvas who have only broken through the four marks, though they have realized the dharma and have verified faith, still have dharma-marks not yet broken through; their realization is insufficient and incomplete, so their faith is also not pure enough. Only when the dharma-marks and non-dharma-marks are broken through, and the mind is very empty and pure without attaching to marks, is one truly a bodhisattva of pure faith.
If a person has grasping and attachment in the mind, there are the four marks, because only with a self is there grasping—if there were no self, who would grasp? So as long as a person takes a mark, there are the marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span; if one takes the dharma-mark, there are the marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span; if one takes the non-dharma-mark, there are the marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. Therefore the bodhisattva should not take dharma, and should not take non-dharma. The Buddha said: The dharma I teach can be likened to a raft—when crossing the water, the raft must be used, but upon reaching the shore it must be abandoned; otherwise one cannot get ashore. When a dharma is useful, use it; after realization, when it is no longer useful, it must be abandoned. Not only must dharma be abandoned, non-dharma must also be abandoned—having dharma or non-dharma in the mind is neither empty nor pure, and one cannot reach the shore of nirvāṇa. Dharma is existence, non-dharma is non-existence; existence is wrong, and non-existence is also wrong—since it is wrong, of course it must be abandoned. Once right and wrong are established and grasped, the four marks are not empty. Since existence is wrong, the non-existence opposed to it is of course also wrong. All dharmas are neither dharma nor non-dharma; only by being free from the four marks and cutting off the hundred wrongs is one ultimately and completely home. This section breaks through the dharma-mark and the non-dharma-mark.
Original text of the Diamond Sutra: 以是义故。如来常说。汝等比丘。知我说法。如筏喻者。法尚应舍。何况非法。
Explanation: For this reason, the Tathāgata often said: You bhikṣus should know that my teaching of dharma to deliver people is like the parable of the raft—once across the river, the raft should be discarded, not clung to; the Buddha-dharma is the same—after attaining buddhahood it is no longer of use, and when one is about to attain buddhahood, abandoning all dharmas is how one attains buddhahood. Even the dharma must be abandoned—how much more so the non-dharma, the dharma of annihilatory emptiness/nihilistic emptiness (uccheda-śūnyatā), which must be abandoned all the more.
Why did the Tathāgata use the raft as a metaphor for teaching the dharma? A raft is used to ferry people across the river; upon reaching the bank, one must abandon the raft to get ashore—one who refuses to leave the raft cannot get ashore. The dharma the Buddha taught is the raft; riding this dharma-raft, sentient beings can reach the farther shore of great nirvāṇa. If a sentient being still has a single dharma remaining in the mind, unextinguished, that is impurity, that is defilement, that is ignorance, and one cannot perfectly accomplish the buddha-way and attain great nirvāṇa. One must abandon all dharmas in the mind, attaching to neither existence nor emptiness, being as empty and pure as the mind of suchness (tathatā), without a single dharma. But before reaching the bank, one must absolutely not abandon the raft—if the ocean of saṃsāra and karma has not yet been crossed, what use is abandoning the raft? The Buddha-dharma is medicine, used to treat sentient beings' various illnesses of afflictions and ignorance. The tathāgatagarbha dharma is a single-flavored powder that treats all sentient beings' illnesses of ignorance; those who take it will surely remove ignorance, cross the ocean of saṃsāra and karma, and accomplish the path of nirvāṇa. Only this medicine can save and liberate sentient beings, ferrying them to the farther shore of nirvāṇa. Therefore, if sons of the Buddha wish to reach the shore of nirvāṇa, they must abandon all dharmas of existence and dharmas of emptiness—dharma and non-dharma alike.
