The Meaning of "Abiding Nowhere, Yet Arousing the Mind"

The mind in the Diamond Sutra's phrase "abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" refers to the self-natured pure mind, the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha; it does not refer to the mind consciousness responding to all dharmas while abiding nowhere, nor is it telling us that cultivating the mind consciousness to abide nowhere is enlightenment—such a case does not count as seeing one's true mind or 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 abide nowhere; as long as the mind consciousness exists, it necessarily abides upon the mental sense-object (dharma-dust); otherwise, it would not know the mental sense-object, would not know that it abides nowhere, and would not know whether it had entered meditative concentration or not. If it knows it has entered concentration, knows it abides nowhere, then it is abiding upon the mental sense-object of "abiding nowhere."

Enlightenment is awakening to the self-natured pure mind. When the Sixth Patriarch, the Great Master, heard the Fifth Patriarch expound the Diamond Sutra, he too awakened to this self-natured pure mind that abides nowhere from the very beginning. "Abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" does not mean that at some moment the mind suddenly abides nowhere and becomes pure for a while, and that the mind at that moment is the true mind, the self-nature, the tathāgatagarbha, and that this constitutes the state of enlightenment. If, after a while, the mind is no longer pure and again has abiding, would not the state of enlightenment have vanished? If enlightenment means awakening to the non-abiding of the mind consciousness, then the Sixth Patriarch would not have awakened to the self-natured pure mind that abides nowhere from the very beginning, and thus would not have been enlightened.

But the Sixth Patriarch absolutely did not awaken to the non-abiding of the mind consciousness; rather, he awakened to the true mind, the self-nature, the eighth consciousness, which abides nowhere from the very beginning. This mind does not need you to make it abide nowhere; it abides nowhere intrinsically, never abiding upon any dharma at all. Therefore, the mind in "abiding nowhere, give rise to the mind" is the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha abides nowhere from the very beginning; it is not a non-abiding cultivated later or transformed into later. As for the first seven consciousnesses, so long as they exist, they have abiding; each has a corresponding sense-object appearance upon which it abides. If the seven consciousnesses did not abide upon the sense-objects, they would not know the appearances of those objects; 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 neither the body consciousness nor the mind consciousness would know that the hands had touched. When the faculties, sense-objects, and consciousnesses—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 discrimination, discernment—the result that follows abiding upon the sense-object.