Explanations of Selected Passages from the Śūraṅgama Sūtra

Original text: 狂心顿歇，歇即菩提。富楼那，妄性如是，因何为在？汝但不随分别世间、业果、众生三种相续，三缘断故，三因不生，则汝心中演若达多狂性自歇，歇即菩提。胜净明心，本周法界，不从人得，何藉劬劳肯綮修证。

Explanation: What is to be ceased is the mad nature of the mind, not the extinguishing of the sixth and seventh consciousnesses. When Yajñadatta saw the head in the mirror, he thought his own head was lost and ran about everywhere searching for his head. Taking the five aggregates as self, taking all states and objects as self, taking the manas as self, one then craves for self and craves for all dharmas—this is the madness of the mind.

Because of this madness of the mind, one does not recognize one's own inherent tathāgatagarbha, and takes the functions and operations of the tathāgatagarbha to be the functions and operations of the manas itself. When one cultivates to the point of ceasing this mad mind, one can then realize the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha.

Sentient beings have always been searching outwardly for their true self, not knowing that the tathāgatagarbha is right within their own five aggregates, and that all dharmas are He. When we stop searching outwardly and turn back to seek within our own body and mind, we can very easily find it—He was never anywhere else. In the end one arrives at this conclusion: the supremely pure and luminous tathāgatagarbha has always pervadingly existed throughout the eighteen dhātus; He is not obtained from anyone else, nor was He attained through painstaking cultivation and realization at such great cost and effort. He is the family treasure originally present in one's own treasury, merely undiscovered due to karmic obstructions.