The Meaning of "One Should Give Rise to a Mind That Does Not Abide in Anything"

The mind in "abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" in the Diamond Sutra refers to the self-natured pure mind, the true mind tathāgatagarbha, not to the mind consciousness responding to all dharmas without abiding, nor is it telling us that cultivating the mind consciousness to a state of non-abiding constitutes enlightenment—such a case does not belong to seeing the mind and realizing awakening. Understanding whether the mind consciousness abides or does not abide has nothing to do with the prajñā wisdom of the tathāgatagarbha. Only when the mind consciousness has ceased does it not abide; as long as the mind consciousness exists, it necessarily abides on mental sense-objects (dharma-viṣaya); otherwise, He would not know the mental sense-objects, would not know that He is not abiding, and would not know whether He has entered meditative concentration or not. If He knows He has entered concentration, knows He is not abiding, then He is abiding on the mental sense-object of "not abiding."

Enlightenment is realizing the self-natured pure mind. When the Sixth Patriarch heard the Fifth Patriarch expound the Diamond Sutra, he likewise realized this self-natured pure mind that is originally without abiding. "Abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" does not mean that at some moment the mind suddenly stops abiding and becomes pure for a while, and that the mind at that moment is the true mind, the self-nature tathāgatagarbha, and that this constitutes an enlightened state. If, after a while, the mind becomes impure again and abides once more, would not the enlightened state then vanish? If enlightenment means realizing the non-abiding of the mind consciousness, then the Sixth Patriarch did not realize the self-natured pure mind that is originally without abiding, and thus did not attain enlightenment.

But the Sixth Patriarch absolutely did not realize the non-abiding of the mind consciousness; rather, he realized the true mind, the self-nature eighth consciousness, which is originally without abiding. This mind does not need you to make it non-abiding—He is originally without abiding, never abiding on any dharma at all. Therefore, the mind in "abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" is the true mind tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha is originally without abiding; it is not a non-abiding cultivated later or acquired later. The first seven consciousnesses, however, as long as they exist, always abide—they each have corresponding sense-object marks and abide on those marks. If the seven consciousnesses did not abide on the sense-objects, they would not know the sense-object marks; since they know them, they are abiding. For example, when the two hands touch: if there were no abiding, there would be no contact; contact means abiding. If it were non-abiding, then the body consciousness and mind consciousness would not know that the hands touched each other. When the faculty, the sense-object, and the consciousness—the three—converge in contact, only then does consciousness know the six sense-objects; consciousness must have contacted the sense-object in order to know it. This knowing is already discriminating, already discerning, which is the result that comes after abiding on the sense-object.