Commentary on the Diamond Sutra: Chapter 6, The Rarity of Right Faith

Original text:须菩提白佛言。世尊。颇有众生得闻如是言说章句。生实信不。佛告须菩提。莫作是说。如来灭后。后五百岁。有持戒修福者。于此章句。能生信心。以此为实。当知是人。不于一佛二佛。三四五佛而种善根。已于无量千万佛所。种诸善根。

Explanation: Subhūti said to the Buddha: World-Honored One, are there really sentient beings who, upon hearing such words and passages, can truly accept them with faith? The Buddha told Subhūti: Do not speak this way. In the last five hundred years after the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa, there will be those who uphold the precepts and cultivate merit, who will be able to give rise to pure faith in these passages of dharma principles, regarding them as true and trustworthy. You should know that such a person has not merely planted wholesome roots with one Buddha, two Buddhas, three, four, or five Buddhas, but has already planted wholesome roots at the places of immeasurable thousands and millions of Buddhas.

In the previous section, the World-Honored One taught: 凡所有相皆是虚妄，若见诸相非相，即见如来. Upon hearing this, Subhūti gave rise to doubt, wondering whether sentient beings who heard such profound passages and principles could truly accept them with faith. This question was raised at a very fitting time. Because sentient beings differ in the sharpness of their faculties, and differ in merit and wisdom, their acceptance of the Dharma also differs. Sentient beings of meager merit (alpa-puṇya) and dull faculties find it very hard to accept the true great Dharma, and often give rise to doubt and slander. Such things have happened since ancient times—did not five thousand disciples withdraw from the Lotus Sutra assembly because they would not accept the Mahāyāna? This is also a normal phenomenon; in every kalpa there have been incidents of slandering the Dharma out of disbelief in the Dharma of ultimate reality. Because sentient beings have not severed their bonds and fetters, they constantly give rise to wrong views (mithyā-dṛṣṭi) such as the view of self, the view of grasping views, and the view of doubt; lacking correct knowledge and view, slandering the Dharma and disbelieving is inevitable.

The view of self is the view that takes the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) and eighteen realms as the self, believing this self to be real and the functions of the five aggregates to be real. The view of grasping views is when sentient beings take their own views as primary—regardless of whether they are correct, they will not accept others' views even when those are correct. Moreover, because sentient beings have not realized the mind of ultimate reality (dharmatā-citta), their various views and opinions about worldly and world-transcending matters are all wrong, deviant, and incorrect, such as the sixty-two views of the non-Buddhists. The view of doubt is when sentient beings cannot make correct judgments and cognitions about correct dharma principles and good spiritual teachers, and harbor knots of doubt in their minds. Because these fetters tightly bind sentient beings, they cannot free themselves from ignorance. Add to this that sentient beings' merit and conditions are not complete, and it is unavoidable that they will slander the Dharma and the Three Jewels—how much more so in the Dharma-ending age.

The World-Honored One's true Dharma lasts one thousand years, the semblance Dharma one thousand years, and the Dharma-ending age ten thousand years. The "last five hundred years after the Tathāgata's parinirvāṇa" may refer to the five hundred years before the end of the Dharma-ending age. At that time there will be few who uphold the precepts and cultivate merit; if there are any, they must be people of very deep wholesome roots and merit. Seeing such passages in the Diamond Sutra that break through the bodily marks of the Tathāgata and break through the marks of all dharmas, they can believe without doubt and praise the Tathāgata's teaching as true. Such a person is certainly rare and hard to encounter. Whoever accepts with faith the passages and principles in the Diamond Sutra is a person of correct faith.

Attaining correct faith is extremely difficult. On the bodhisattva's path of study and practice, one has already passed through the stage of the ten faiths, entered the stage of the ten abodes of cultivating merit, upholding precepts, cultivating patience, cultivating meditation (samādhi), and cultivating wisdom; having perfected the four applications of knowledge—the heat stage, the summit stage, the patience stage, and the supreme worldly dharma—and having completed the provisions for bodhi, one breaks through all false marks and realizes the mind of ultimate reality. This requires dozens of kalpas, hundreds of kalpas, thousands of kalpas, or even longer eons of steeping in and cultivating the Buddha's Dharma, thereby acquiring correct view. During this period one must have encountered and made offerings to countless Buddhas, having already listened to sutras and heard the Dharma at the places of immeasurable thousands and millions of Buddhas, planted wholesome roots, and accumulated merit—something that cannot be accomplished in a short kalpa. Countless sentient beings resolve to cultivate the path, yet only a very few reach this stage. So it is not surprising to see that most people are still at the beginner stage. Cultivating the Buddha's path is extremely difficult, only because for immeasurable kalpas upon immeasurable kalpas beings have transmigrated through birth and death, with ignorance deeply rooted and wholesome roots shallow—a few days of sunshine cannot melt long-accumulated hard ice.

Original text:闻是章句。乃至一念。生净信者。须菩提。如来悉知悉见。是诸众生。得如是无量福德。

Explanation: Those who hear such passages and give rise to even a single thought of pure faith—the Tathāgata knows them all completely and sees them all completely, and these sentient beings obtain such immeasurable merit.

The Buddha is also called the one who possesses omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā), with merit and wisdom both perfectly complete, fully knowing all worldly and world-transcending dharmas, fully knowing all the seeds and functions contained within the tathāgatagarbha—knowing not a single dharma not known, which is called omniscience/wisdom of all aspects (sarvākārajñatā). This wisdom is so subtle that when it rains simultaneously in the worlds of the ten directions, the Buddha knows the exact number of raindrops. One world contains one billion four-continent systems, one billion great oceans, one billion Mount Sumerus, one billion six heavens of the desire realm, one billion first-dhyāna heavens, and countless heavens of the second dhyāna and above. How many celestial bodies there are in the ten directions, over how vast an extent, and the number of raindrops falling—the Buddha knows them all. The Buddha's wisdom is so subtle that when any sentient being in all the worlds of the ten directions gives rise to a single thought, the Buddha knows it, whereas sentient beings themselves are often not even aware of their own thoughts: only after reciting the Buddha's name or reciting sutras for a long time do they notice they have been having wandering thoughts all along. Whatever the manas grasps at, the mind chases after—like a monkey and a horse, very hard to subdue.

How many sentient beings are there in the worlds of the ten directions? On our planet Earth alone there are about seven billion humans. How many animals are there? Too many to count. When a fish spawns, it may produce thousands upon thousands of offspring; in a square meter of land there are countless ants, and various insects and bacteria are even more impossible to count. Bacteria grow everywhere: every inch of our skin's surface is covered with bacteria; the nine orifices and the secretions that flow out, such as tears and sweat, are all bacteria; peel back the skin, and the muscles, sinews, bones, marrow, blood, brain matter, and internal organs inside are all bacteria—there is not a single place without them.

The Buddhist sutras say that these bacteria have three heads and six arms, are of many colors and strange shapes, killing and devouring one another. If their numbers and species become unbalanced, we fall ill—skin diseases are just like this. So when we use medicine to kill bacteria, another portion of beneficial bacteria is killed, and we contract other illnesses. As for ghost and spirit beings, they are everywhere—in desolate mountains and remote wildernesses, by rivers and forests, at crossroads; even on a single blade of small grass there cling beings without merit. In the Śūraṅgama Sutra, the World-Honored One said: 清净比丘于歧路行不踏生草，况以手拔。 Beings without merit take a single blade of grass as their home, dwelling upon it; if it is trampled or pulled by hand, the home of those beings would be destroyed. Add to this the beings in the hells, the asura class of beings, and non-human beings—just one small world has this many beings; how many more must there be in a great thousand-world, in the great thousand-worlds of the ten directions?

With so many sentient beings, whenever any being gives rise to a thought, the Buddha knows it. Therefore, when the conditions of any sentient being have ripened and their wholesome roots have matured, the Buddha knows it and will arrange the corresponding conditions so they may be liberated. So if someone hears the passages in the Diamond Sutra and gives rise to a single thought of pure faith, the Tathāgata naturally knows and sees it completely. For every sentient being, throughout beginningless kalpas, which realm they were born into, what karmic actions they committed, what retributions they received, how many wholesome roots they planted, how much merit they accumulated, and when they can enter the path and attain the way—the Buddha knows it all.

Original text:何以故。是诸众生。无复我相人相众生相寿者相。无法相亦无非法相。

Explanation: Why is this said? Because these sentient beings no longer cling to the bodily marks of the Tathāgata, knowing that all marks are false and illusory; they have long since been without the mark of self, the mark of person, the mark of sentient being, and the mark of life span. They first broke through the four marks, and then went on to break through the marks of all dharmas, cultivating until their minds have neither the mark of dharmas nor the mark of no-dharmas.

Dharmas are divided into conditioned and unconditioned dharmas, dharmas arising from conditions and dharmas not arising from conditions. The five aggregates (pañca-skandha) are dharmas, the eighteen realms are dharmas, the three realms are all dharmas, and suchness (tathatā) is also a dharma. Whatever can be cognized by people is a dharma; whether visible or invisible, existence is dharma. There are true dharmas and false dharmas, arising-and-ceasing dharmas and non-arising-non-ceasing dharmas, dharmas formed by causes and conditions and dharmas that exist inherently and are not formed by causes and conditions—from every angle and every aspect, there are distinctions.

Dharmas include dharmas of causes and conditions and dharmas not of causes and conditions. Dharmas of causes and conditions are emptiness (śūnyatā), that is, they are false; dharmas not of causes and conditions are dharmas that exist inherently—that is, true dharmas, dharmas that do not perish. Whatever dharma directly points to the attainment of buddhahood is the ultimate dharma; the dharma of seeing the mind and seeing one's nature, the dharma of suchness (tathatā), is the ultimate dharma, while the methods for reaching the ultimate dharma are expedient dharmas. The mark of dharmas is existence; the mark of no-dharmas is emptiness (śūnyatā). One who can give rise to a single thought of pure faith in the passages of the Diamond Sutra has not only broken through the four marks, but has also broken through the mark of dharmas and the mark of no-dharmas.

Original text:何以故。是诸众生若心取相。即为著我人众生寿者。若取法相。即著我人众生寿者。若取非法相。即著我人众生寿者。是故不应取法。不应取非法。

Explanation: Why is this said? Because if these sentient beings take up marks in their minds, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If they take up the mark of dharmas, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span; if they take up the mark of no-dharmas, they are attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. Therefore one should not take up dharmas, nor should one take up no-dharmas.

If sentient beings take up marks in their minds—no matter what marks they take up—because there is a self taking up the marks, they are attached to the four marks. If sentient beings take up the mark that dharmas exist, because there is a self taking up the marks, they are attached to the four marks. If sentient beings take up the mark that dharmas do not exist, because there is a self taking up the mark of no-dharmas, they are attached to the four marks. Whether sentient beings take up the mark of dharmas existing or not existing, it is a self taking up marks, so in all cases they are attached to the four marks.

The mark of dharmas is the existence of dharmas in the three realms. The three realms exist in dependence on the cognition of sentient beings; only with a self can the marks of the dharmas of the three realms be cognized. Therefore, if one takes up the mark of dharmas, believing that all dharmas have marks of existence, one is attached to the four marks of self, person, sentient being, and life span. If one takes up the mark of no-dharmas, believing that all dharmas are empty (śūnyatā), that none exist, that there is no mark of dharmas, one is likewise attached to the four marks.