The Esoteric Significance of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Section 4  The Fourth Inquiry into the Mind — Seeing Light with Eyes Open, Seeing Darkness with Eyes Closed

Original text: 阿难白佛言。世尊。我今又作。如是思惟。是众生身。腑藏在中。窍穴居外。有藏则暗。有窍则明。

Explanation: Ānanda said that he now makes the following deliberation: in the body of every sentient being, the five internal organs and six viscera are hidden within the body. (In "腑藏在中", the character 藏 is not pronounced with the sound of 丈 (zhàng) but with the sound of 尝 (cáng); 藏 means to store or to hide.) Among the five faculties, the eye aperture, ear aperture, nose aperture, tongue aperture, and body aperture are all located on the outside of the body. Whatever is hidden within the body appears dark, while whatever has apertures opening to the outside of the body appears bright.

"The apertures are located outside": an aperture is a passage connecting the inside and the outside, and a point is an acupuncture point; acupuncture points that connect the inside and the outside are called apertures, mainly referring to the four faculties such as the eye faculty, including the body faculty; the body faculty entirely communicates with the external world, and all of them are bright. Ānanda said that the five internal organs and six viscera of sentient beings are hidden within the body in darkness; when the conscious mind sees darkness, it is equivalent to seeing the five internal organs and six viscera, so the conscious mind is within the body—this is Ānanda's view. Ānanda held that if the conscious mind is within the body, it can, through the aperture of the eye faculty, see the light outside the eye faculty and marks such as form and space, all of which belong to external form. Ānanda cited these two points intending to show that the conscious mind is still within the body.

Original text: 今我对佛。开眼见明。名为见外。闭眼见暗。名为见内。是义云何。

Explanation: Ānanda said: Now, facing the Buddha, when I open my eyes I see light; this is called seeing the outside of the body. When I close my eyes, I see darkness; this is called seeing the inside of the body. Is this view of mine right or wrong?

Ānanda used "opening the eyes and seeing light" to show that the conscious mind is within the body and only then can it see the light outside through the aperture of the eye faculty, and also see the Buddha, which amounts to seeing the outside; therefore it is said that the conscious mind within the body can see the outside. When closing the eyes and seeing darkness, because the conscious mind is within the body and no longer looks outside the body through the eye aperture, this time it looks inside the body, and thus sees darkness; seeing darkness is equivalent to seeing the five internal organs and six viscera within the body. Because there is no light inside the body, only darkness, seeing darkness is equivalent to seeing the inside of the body. With this argument Ānanda sought to prove that the eye consciousness is within the body. After he finished speaking, he actually still lacked confidence, so he asked the Buddha how this reasoning of his was—whether it was right or not.

After the Buddha had refuted all three of Ānanda's propositions, Ānanda came up with another view and told the Buddha: this conscious mind, with eyes open, can see the outside; with eyes closed, can see the inside; the conscious mind is within the body. What is the argument, and how can it be proven that the conscious mind is still within the body? Ānanda made two points: the first is that with eyes open one can see light; because the conscious mind is within the body and the light is outside the body, as soon as the eyes open, one can see the light and see the outside, which shows that the conscious mind is definitely within the body; the second is that as soon as the eyes close, one sees darkness; because there is no light inside the body, the five internal organs and six viscera are dark, and darkness is equivalent to one's own five internal organs and six viscera, so seeing darkness is equivalent to seeing the five internal organs and six viscera within the body. Ānanda put forward these two points to prove his fourth proposition.

Original text: 佛告阿难。汝当闭眼。见暗之时。此暗境界。为与眼对。为不对眼。若与眼对。暗在眼前。云何成内。若成内者。居暗室中。无日月灯。此室暗中。皆汝焦腑。若不对者。云何成见。

Explanation: The Buddha asked Ānanda: When you close your eyes and see darkness, does this dark realm confront the eye faculty, or does it not confront it? If the darkness confronts the eye faculty, then the darkness is before your eyes; since it is before your eyes, how can the darkness be within the body? If the darkness is within the body, being your five internal organs and six viscera, then when you dwell in a dark room without the sun, the moon, or lamplight, all the darkness in this room should be your triple burner, five internal organs, and six viscera. If the darkness does not confront your eye faculty, how could there be the seeing of your conscious mind?

As for the first argument, opening the eyes to see light, the Buddha did not refute it; the Buddha specifically refuted his claim of closing the eyes to see darkness—this argument cannot prove that the conscious mind is within the body. As for the second argument, closing the eyes to see darkness, the Buddha refuted it by dividing it into two cases, and for each case further refuted it from both the positive and the negative sides; in this way the argument of closing the eyes to see darkness was overturned, and immediately the thesis that the conscious mind is within the body was refuted.

Regarding the claim of closing the eyes to see darkness, the Buddha refuted it from two aspects. The Buddha asked Ānanda: when you close your eyes and see darkness, is the darkness before your eyes, or is it not before your eyes? In either case, the Buddha would overturn the thesis that the conscious mind is within the body from both aspects. In the first aspect, the Buddha said that if the darkness confronts your, Ānanda's, eye faculty, then the darkness is before your eyes; but when the darkness is before your eyes, the darkness is not within the body, and the darkness is not your internal organs.

The Buddha said: if the darkness confronts your eye faculty and is before your eyes, how could the darkness become your five internal organs and six viscera? This is not right. Therefore, closing the eyes and seeing darkness is not seeing the darkness inside the body; the claim that the conscious mind is within the body does not hold—this is the refutation from the positive side. Light is a realm; the opposite of light is darkness; darkness is also a realm; both belong to the form dust seen by the eye consciousness. If the dark realm confronts the eye faculty, the dark realm is before your eyes; the eye faculty is on the surface of the body, or rather on the outside, not within the body—this is contrary to Ānanda's argument that seeing darkness is seeing the inside.

To take a step back: if the darkness confronting the eye faculty were also part of the five internal organs and six viscera within the body, then when you dwell in a dark room—a room with neither the light of the sun, nor the light of the moon, nor the light of a lamp—all the darkness in the room should be your five internal organs and six viscera; yet this is impossible. Because you, Ānanda, said that seeing darkness is equivalent to seeing the five internal organs and six viscera, when you are in an extremely dark room, would not the darkness in the room become your five internal organs and six viscera? In this way the Buddha refuted the argument that the darkness confronts the eye faculty.

From the other aspect: if the darkness does not confront the eye faculty, is not before your eyes, but is inside the body, belonging to the five internal organs and six viscera within the body, then there is no darkness before your eyes. Then the faculty and the dust would not confront each other, and there would be no arising of consciousness; then there could be no seeing. Since there is no darkness, darkness cannot be seen, and there would be no seeing by the conscious mind. The claim that the conscious mind within the body closes the eyes and sees darkness does not hold. In that case, the darkness confronting the eye faculty is wrong, and the darkness not confronting the eye faculty is also wrong; whether the darkness is before your eyes or within your body, both aspects are incorrect.

Original text: 若离外见。内对所成。合眼见暗。名为身中。开眼见明。何不见面。若不见面。内对不成。

Explanation: If seeing could occur apart from what is outside, and it were established that the eye faculty confronts the darkness within the body, and closing the eyes enables one to see darkness, which is called seeing within the body, then when you open your eyes and see light, why can you not see your face? (Therefore the conscious mind is not within the body.) If with eyes open you cannot see your own face, then the eye faculty confronting the darkness within the body is not established. (Therefore the eye faculty does not confront the darkness within the body; closing the eyes and seeing darkness is not established; the conscious mind is not within the body, not in the apertures, and not in the five faculties.)

The Buddha said: if closing the eyes and seeing darkness is equivalent to seeing within the body and seeing the five internal organs and six viscera, and the conscious mind is within your body and can see the darkness inside the body—if this claim of yours could hold—then when you open your eyes, your conscious mind, which through the eye faculty can see the light outside, should also see your own face. The face is outside your eye faculty, and your conscious mind is within the body; through the body and the eye faculty, it should see the face first. If your conscious mind cannot see your face, then the conscious mind is not within the body and does not confront the five internal organs and six viscera.

Original text: 见面若成。此了知心。及与眼根。乃在虚空。何成在内。

Explanation: The Buddha said: if your conscious mind can see your face and this could be established, then the conscious mind that sees the face, as well as your eye faculty, should be in empty space; how could it be said to be within the body?

The conscious mind and the eye faculty must function together in combination and cannot be separated. If the conscious mind could see its own face, it would be confronting the face, outside the face, and the eye faculty should also be outside the face, confronting the face. If the conscious mind and the eye faculty were outside the face, that would amount to being in empty space; how then could you say the conscious mind is within the body? Would this not be mutually contradictory? Moreover, the eye faculty is clearly on the face, not inside the body, and not in empty space. In this way the Buddha utterly negated Ānanda's viewpoint; the proposition that the conscious mind is within the body does not hold.

Original text: 若在虚空。自非汝体。即应如来。今见汝面。亦是汝身。汝眼已知。身合非觉。必汝执言。身眼两觉。应有二知。即汝一身。应成两佛。是故应知。汝言见暗。名见内者。无有是处。

Explanation: If your conscious mind and eye faculty were in empty space, they would not belong to your body; if they belonged to your body, then now, facing the Tathāgata, I can see your face, so I too would be your body. Your eye consciousness already has a perceiving and discerning nature, whereas your body has no awareness; if you, Ānanda, insist on clinging to the claim that the body also has an awareness, and that the eye consciousness and the eye faculty each have an awareness, then there should be two perceptive natures, and you, Ānanda, as one person, would become two Buddhas. Therefore you should know that what you said—seeing darkness is seeing within the body—is incorrect.

The Buddha said: if one body had two perceptions, one person would have two individual entities—one being the body, the other being the eye consciousness and the eye faculty; since these two entities are independent of each other, there should be two tathāgatagarbhas. The body has one tathāgatagarbha and can become one Buddha; the conscious mind and eye faculty in empty space outside the body also have the nature of knowing and should also have a tathāgatagarbha and can become one Buddha; otherwise there would be neither an eye faculty nor a nature of knowing. If you had two tathāgatagarbhas, then your single sentient being's body would become two Buddhas, which is obviously untenable.

The Buddha refuted Ānanda from these several aspects and arrived at a conclusion: what you, Ānanda, said—seeing darkness is called seeing the inside—has no validity whatsoever. Here the Buddha refuted Ānanda's view from two aspects—whether the darkness confronts the eye faculty or does not confront it; if it does not confront it, he further refuted it from two aspects, advancing layer by layer, demolishing all the evidence that could possibly hold for Ānanda. None of the aspects holds, and none can prove that the conscious mind within the body can see the five internal organs and six viscera inside the body. Thus, for the fourth inquiry into the mind, the proposition that with eyes open one can see light and with eyes closed one can see darkness was refuted.