Explanation of the Diamond Sutra: Subhūti's Request, Two

Subhūti is also known as Subhūti (Sudatta's "Good Appearance"), the foremost in understanding emptiness among Śākyamuni Buddha's disciples. While still in his mother's womb, he already knew that all dharmas are empty and quiescent; this was due to the deep wholesome roots accumulated over many kalpas in previous lives. He entered the womb, dwelt in the womb, and emerged from the womb without confusion or delusion. At the moment of his birth, all the family's treasures vanished and disappeared, and a few days later they all reappeared on their own, demonstrating that everything is empty, and even existence is only false existence. Subhūti is honorifically addressed as "Elder" (sthavira); an elder is one who possesses prestige and virtue among the assembly, one who is not in accord with the three poisons and afflictions. Subhūti attained the fruit of an arhat by cultivating the emptiness dharma of the Small Vehicle, and when the World-Honored One expounded the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, he turned his mind toward the Great Vehicle and walked the bodhisattva path. When the Buddha expounds a sūtra, he always relies on some particular condition as an introduction, using the topic as a springboard to expound an entire sūtra; he rarely expounds a sūtra without anyone requesting it, unless it is especially important. This sūtra was requested by Subhūti.

Original text:时。长老须菩提在大众中。即从座起。偏袒右肩。右膝着地。合掌恭敬而白佛言。希有世尊。如来善护念诸菩萨。善付嘱诸菩萨。

Explanation: Just after the World-Honored One finished his meal and sat down cross-legged, Subhūti rose from his seat among the assembly, bared his right shoulder, knelt on his right knee, and with palms joined respectfully asked the Buddha: Rare and hard-to-see World-Honored One, the Tathāgata has always skillfully protected and been mindful of all bodhisattvas, and skillfully entrusted and charged all bodhisattvas.

Why is the World-Honored One rare and hard to encounter?

Subhūti first praised the World-Honored One as the rarest sage in the world, extremely difficult to behold. The World-Honored One is indeed rare: a trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great thousand-world) has only one Buddha. One sun-and-moon heaven, from the hells beneath the four great oceans, to the earth, to Mount Sumeru, up to the six heavens of the desire realm, is called a small world. One thousand small worlds plus the first dhyāna heaven of the form realm is a small thousand-world; one thousand small thousand-worlds plus the second dhyāna heaven of the form realm is a middle thousand-world; one thousand middle thousand-worlds plus the heavens of the third dhyāna and above of the form realm is a great thousand-world. Such a vast world has only one Buddha, and the duration he remains in bodily form dwelling in the world is extremely brief, while the interval between two successive Buddhas is long. The shortest interval is that between Śākyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha, which is 5.67 billion years; for longer intervals, often for several great kalpas or several tens of great kalpas, no Buddha appears in the world, and even more distant times may pass without any Buddha appearing. From this we can see that the World-Honored One is indeed extremely rare and hard to encounter.

The appellation "Tathāgata" is spoken from the perspective of the nature and essence of sentient beings. The Tathāgata comes from suchness (tathatā); suchness is a nature and essence that is real and immovable in suchness. Where there is suchness there is a Tathāgata; without suchness there is no Tathāgata. In the Buddha's tathāgatagarbha, the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses has been completely severed; it is no longer subject to perfuming or to change, and is therefore called the suchness of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. But the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings contains seeds of unwholesome karma, harboring the ignorance of a single thought, beginningless ignorance, and ignorance as numerous as dust and sand, along with seeds of segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa) and transformational birth-and-death (parināma-maraṇa); it is also called the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). Through cultivation, the seeds of unwholesome karma in sentient beings' tathāgatagarbha steadily decrease, the seeds of wholesome karma steadily increase, ignorance diminishes bit by bit, and enlightenment increases bit by bit; the tathāgatagarbha as a whole constantly undergoes change, so it is not yet true suchness, and differs to some degree from the Buddha's suchness.

However, the essence of the tathāgatagarbha itself is immovable in suchness: when forms come it does not see, when sounds come it does not hear, when scents come it does not smell, when flavors come it does not taste, when tangibles come it does not touch, when mental objects come it does not know; it is completely unmoved by the realms of the six sense objects, never gives rise to mental activity or thoughts, is not turned by the six sense objects, and possesses the qualities of reality and suchness. The tathāgatagarbha is sometimes also called suchness; its self-nature being unchanging is called "suchness without alteration." The tathāgatagarbha itself is like a clean cup, and the seven transforming consciousnesses are like the water in the cup; the water may be pure or defiled, so the cup of water is divided into the undefiled and the defiled. Sentient beings' seven transforming consciousnesses are defiled; the seeds are stored in the cup of the true mind, so the true mind harbors filth, and the water poured out is dirty water. Therefore sentient beings' true mind is called the tathāgatagarbha, Ālayavijñāna, the vipāka-consciousness, and so on; whereas the Buddha's true mind has no defilement and is called the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna). Cultivation is precisely the purification of the seven transforming consciousnesses and the breaking of ignorance; to break ignorance one must study the principles of the tathāgatagarbha, and when one has fully penetrated them, one becomes a Buddha.

How does the Tathāgata skillfully protect and be mindful of all bodhisattvas?

A sentient being begins cultivation from the ten faiths stage of an ordinary person, proceeding through the ten abodes, ten practices, and ten dedications, and then to the ten bhūmis, and the stages of vigilance (māyā) and wondrous awakening — fifty-two stages in all. At every stage one cannot be apart from the Buddha's blessing and protection; otherwise one would be blocked by karmic obstructions and unable to continue perfuming upward. Thus it is said that the Buddha's grace is vast and mighty; without becoming a Buddha there is no way to repay it. Then, can the Buddha protect and be mindful of so many sentient beings? He can protect and be mindful of them all, because the Buddha is also called omniscience (sarvākārajñatā), with wisdom, virtue, and ability perfectly complete; there is not a single dharma in the mundane or supramundane that he does not know or understand. The Buddha knows the minds of every sentient being in the worlds of the ten directions, knows the affairs of every sentient being throughout countless kalpas, and even when it rains simultaneously throughout the worlds of the ten directions, the Buddha knows exactly how many raindrops there are in total. Since the Buddha can know the minds of sentient beings, he can protect and support their cultivation, helping them pass through every barrier until they attain buddhahood.

From the ten faiths stage, bodhisattvas begin cultivating faith in the Three Jewels, learning about the Buddha's thirty-two major marks and eighty minor marks, the causes and conditions of his cultivation of the bodhisattva path over kalpas, the merit and content of the Buddha's ten epithets, and the formation and scope of Buddha-lands, so as to give rise to a heart of aspiration. Then they learn the rudimentary contents of the Tripitaka and twelve divisions of scriptures expounded by the Buddha, the meaning of the three refuges and five precepts, and then learn about the Sangha Jewel — what are ordinary monks, monks who uphold the tradition, and noble monks (ariya-saṅgha), as well as the Three Jewels as one essence and the Three Jewels of self-nature. In this way, from blind faith to reverent faith and devout faith, they arrive at correct faith: believing that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha truly abide in the worlds of the ten directions, believing that all sentient beings in the ten directions possess the tathatā buddha-nature and can all become Buddhas, and that they themselves can also become Buddhas. When faith in attaining buddhahood is complete, the ten faiths stage is fulfilled. How long this takes depends on the depth of one's wholesome roots and merit and the degree of one's diligence; all of this cultivation cannot be apart from the Buddha's protection.

After this stage of cultivation is complete, the Buddha will protect and guide the bodhisattva into the cultivation of the three stages of wise faith (the ten abodes, ten practices, and ten dedications). At the first abode, one cultivates generosity (dāna), accumulating the resources of merit as provisions for seeing the mind and seeing the nature; at the second abode, one cultivates the precepts, cutting off evil and cultivating good, transforming the mind toward purity, and not recklessly chasing conditions; at the third abode, one cultivates patience, including patience toward worldly dharmas, affairs, people, and things, and patience toward the Mahāyāna principle of the unborn dharma of the tathāgatagarbha; at the fourth abode, one cultivates diligence — generosity, precepts, patience, and meditative concentration must all be cultivated diligently; at the fifth abode, one cultivates meditative concentration (dhyāna), being able to abide unmoved in a state of concentration and in the principles of the Great and Small Vehicles, reaching preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi), with the ability to contemplate the emptiness of the Small Vehicle and the emptiness (śūnyatā) mind of the Great Vehicle; at the sixth abode, one cultivates the wisdom of prajñā, and when it is relatively complete, one can see the mind; after giving rise to the contemplation of illusion, one knows that all dharmas are false and illusory, that all dharmas are like those conjured by a magician, and like clouds and mist in the sky, unreal.

After completing the ten abodes, one enters the ten practices stage and attains the contemplation of mirages, perceiving all dharmas as empty and illusory like a mirage. The phenomenon of a mirage is like this: when the sun shines on a sandy beach, heat rises and forms an illusory scene, as if there were buildings, carriages, horses, and people, and the people and horses even seem to be moving; but upon approaching, one sees nothing at all. The phenomenon of a mirage is like this: a deer, being extremely thirsty, gazes from afar at the sandy beach and hallucinates that it sees a river; running over, it finds not a single drop of water on the sand. Sentient beings, like that thirsty deer, falsely see all dharmas.

After this dharma is cultivated, one passes the third barrier of the Chan school — the barrier of birth and death — and then enters the ten dedications stage to cultivate the contemplation of dream, realizing that all dharmas are like a dream. When dreaming, all the people, things, and affairs in the dream seem real, so in the dream one experiences joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, grasping at and clinging to the dream; upon waking, not even a single hair can be found, though tears of mingled sorrow and joy still hang on one's cheeks. Sentient beings when awake are just as when dreaming, utterly unable to perceive the falsity and unreality of the world — coming and going in dreams, never awakening. At this point, after additionally cultivating some wisdom of the varieties of paths, one enters the first bhūmi, becoming a noble one; one-third of the path to buddhahood has been completed.

Throughout this entire process of cultivation, the bodhisattva has never been apart from the blessing and protection of all the Buddhas, life after life. When the bodhisattva craves worldly pleasures and forgets cultivation, the Buddha warns him with impermanence; when the bodhisattva must leave home to cultivate, the Buddha secretly obstructs his path in worldly dharmas; when the bodhisattva is absorbed in the Small Vehicle, the Buddha guides him onto the Great Vehicle path; when the bodhisattva has the ability to deliver sentient beings, the Buddha arranges for him to go to karmically connected worlds in the ten directions to deliver beings; when the bodhisattva inadvertently falls into the three evil destinies, the Buddha personally or sends bodhisattvas to rescue him; when the bodhisattva has attained the fourth fruit of arhatship and is about to enter nirvāṇa, the Buddha uses skillful means to persuade the bodhisattva to remain in bodily form dwelling in the world, benefiting self and others until buddhahood, not entering nirvāṇa — all of these are the Buddha's protection and entrustment of the bodhisattvas. The Buddha's compassion surpasses that of parents by hundreds of millions of times beyond reckoning; the Buddha's grace cannot be fully told, his praise cannot be exhausted.

This is the protection and mindfulness of sentient beings by the Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas, which have form and marks. Most important is the protection and mindfulness of the Dharmakāya Buddha — that protection is no trivial matter and is indispensable. Throughout the bodhisattva's cultivation over three countless great kalpas, the Dharmakāya Buddha — the Tathāgata within oneself — protects and is mindful of the bodhisattva at every moment, never departing for an instant, providing all the seeds needed for the bodhisattvas' cultivation of the path, storing the seeds of path-karma obtained through the bodhisattvas' cultivation, without the slightest deficiency or omission. Only when wholesome karmic seeds are thus complete can the bodhisattva attain buddhahood.

Original text:世尊。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。云何应住。云何降伏其心。佛言。善哉善哉。须菩提。如汝所说。如来善护念诸菩萨。善付嘱诸菩萨。汝今谛听。当为汝说。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。应如是住。如是降伏其心。唯然世尊。愿乐欲闻。

Explanation: Subhūti asked again: World-Honored One, when good men and good women give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, how should they abide? How should they subdue their minds? The World-Honored One replied: Excellent, excellent, Subhūti. Just as you have said, the Tathāgata indeed skillfully protects and is mindful of all bodhisattvas, and skillfully entrusts and charges all bodhisattvas. Now listen carefully; I shall explain for you: after good men and good women have given rise to the bodhi mind for attaining buddhahood, they should abide in this way, and subdue their minds in this way. Subhūti then declared: Yes, World-Honored One, I am most eager and delighted to hear your exposition.