Explanation of the Diamond Sutra: Why All Minds Are Not Mind

Original text of Chapter Eighteen, "One Body, One Unified View": 须菩提。于意云何。如恒河中所有沙。佛说是沙不。如是。世尊。如来说是沙。须菩提。于意云何。如一恒河中所有沙。有如是沙等恒河。是诸恒河所有沙数。佛世界如是。宁为多不。甚多。世尊。

Explanation: Subhūti, what do you think? For example, all the sands in the Ganges River—does the Buddha also call them sands? Subhūti replied: It is so, World-Honored One; the Tathāgata also calls these sands "sands." Subhūti, what do you think? For example, all the sands in one Ganges River—there are as many Ganges Rivers as there are sands in it, and then the number of all the sands in all those Ganges Rivers—Buddha-lands are as numerous as this. Are they not many? Subhūti replied: World-Honored One, they are simply too many. Just the sands in one Ganges River are already countless, let alone all the sands in all the Ganges Rivers as numerous as those sands—that is simply impossible to count and impossible to imagine. Buddha-lands are as numerous as this, so the Buddha-lands are also unimaginable.

Original text: 佛告须菩提。尔所国土中。所有众生。若干种心。如来悉知。何以故。如来说诸心。皆为非心。是名为心。所以者何。须菩提。过去心不可得。现在心不可得。未来心不可得。

Explanation: The World-Honored One told Subhūti that among all the sentient beings in so many Buddha-lands, the Tathāgata knows all of their various minds completely, without omission. Why is this said? Because the Tathāgata says that all the various minds of these sentient beings are not real minds; they are merely provisionally named "minds," none of them being minds that truly exist—they are just given a provisional name, called "minds," and that is all. Why is this said? Subhūti, these so-called minds are all subject to arising, ceasing, change, and impermanence. A mind of the past is unattainable, because the past has already vanished; the present mind is still flowing and changing thought after thought, cannot be grasped, and is also unattainable; the future mind has not yet appeared and is even more unattainable. A mind that is unattainable and cannot be grasped is not a real mind; it is only an illusory false appearance.

Why is it said that the Tathāgata knows all the various minds of sentient beings? Here, "Tathāgata" refers, on the one hand, to a Tathāgata with a five-aggregate body, including the Sambhogakāya Buddha and the Nirmāṇakāya Buddha; on the other hand, it refers to the Dharmakāya Buddha, the Tathāgata without a five-aggregate body. The Nirmāṇakāya Buddha, through cultivation over three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, has accomplished omniscience (sarvākārajñatā), with supernatural powers and abilities perfected and unobstructed. His wisdom can thoroughly see all the mental activities of the immeasurable and boundless sentient beings in the worlds of the ten directions; he knows all sentient beings' thoughts at once, and wherever sentient beings' karmic conditions ripen, he will manifest there, proclaiming the Dharma teachings and delivering sentient beings. The other, the Dharmakāya Buddha, the Tathāgata, can know sentient beings' mental activities—the mental activities in the process of the manifest functioning of the seven consciousnesses are all known by the tathāgatagarbha, and only then can it cooperate with the seven consciousnesses to arise and manifest, continuing to function. Therefore, "the various minds of sentient beings" refers to the deluded mind, the seven consciousnesses, not to the vajra mind (vajra-citta), the tathāgatagarbha, because the tathāgatagarbha is only one kind and has no varieties.

The tathāgatagarbha knows sentient beings' mental activities, primarily by knowing the mental activities of the seventh consciousness, the manas. The content that the six consciousnesses discern and deliberate upon in discerning the myriad dharmas of the six sense objects must all be transmitted to the manas; based on this, the manas gives rise to mental factors such as attention (manaskāra), and then makes its own deliberation (manasikāra) and decisions. The tathāgatagarbha will then discern the manas's attention and deliberation mental factor; all of the manas's decisions and intentions are known by the tathāgatagarbha, and it will then comply with the manas's decisions, giving rise to the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses. Therefore, when the tathāgatagarbha knows the manas's mental activities, it can make the bodily, verbal, and mental actions of the six consciousnesses manifest according to the manas's decisions; the content of the manas's deliberation is also the content discerned by the six consciousnesses, so when the tathāgatagarbha discerns the manas's mental activities, it is equivalent to knowing the mental activities of the six consciousnesses. The tathāgatagarbha also discerns sentient beings' karmic seeds; after discerning them, it will output the karmic seeds, and thus knows what mental activities sentient beings will manifest.

As for these seven consciousnesses, in fact there are no seven consciousnesses; on the surface it appears there are, but this existence is false existence—sentient beings falsely see and falsely know them; in reality, they are all the tathāgatagarbha mind. The seven consciousnesses formed by the tathāgatagarbha transmitting out consciousness seeds are in essence still the tathāgatagarbha mind; sentient beings falsely perceive that there are seven consciousnesses, but in essence it is the tathāgatagarbha. It is all the tathāgatagarbha itself playing about within the illusory realms it has manifested, which is why the Tathāgata says that all minds are not minds. Here, "not minds" does not refer to the tathāgatagarbha; it refers to the seven consciousnesses, meaning that there is no truly real deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses—all is the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, provisionally named "various minds" and provisionally named "seven consciousnesses."

Later, the three minds are further mentioned, consistent with what came before, all referring to the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses. The deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses is utterly unattainable, because none of them are real dharmas; they are illusory and subject to arising and ceasing—this is why it is said they are unattainable. The three minds of past, future, and present mainly refer to the six consciousnesses, the mind centered on the mind consciousness; the manas, however, has no division of past, future, and present. These minds cannot be grasped or retained; they arise and cease in an instant, never pausing thought after thought—this is why these minds are said to be unattainable, and indeed they cannot be obtained.