Diamond Sutra Commentary: No Acceptance and No Greed, Chapter 28

In this chapter, the World-Honored One, through describing the merit attained by bodhisattvas who give away the seven treasures, gives a deep and detailed description of the nature of the mind of ultimate reality, the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha, with respect to the merit obtained from practicing the perfection of generosity with the five aggregates, fundamentally experiences neutral feeling (upekṣā-vedanā); He does not enjoy even the slightest bit of it, nor does He care whether it is merit or not, calamity or not, nor does He know of merit or calamity. Moreover, because the tathāgatagarbha has no mental factor of greed, He will not crave merit or any other dharma whatsoever; toward all dharmas He is without desire or seeking, without delight or aversion. After a bodhisattva attains enlightenment and breaks through marks, his mind is empty, and toward merit and all dharmas he will likewise not give rise to craving mental activities, neither delighting nor being averse, maintaining the neutral feeling of the middle way — this is the true mental activity of a bodhisattva.

Original text: 须菩提。若菩萨以满恒河沙等世界七宝。持用布施。若复有人。知一切法无我。得成于忍。此菩萨胜前菩萨。所得功德。

Explanation: The World-Honored One said to Subhūti: If there is a bodhisattva who uses the seven treasures filling worlds as numerous as the sands of the Ganges to practice giving, and if there is another bodhisattva who realizes that among all dharmas, both worldly and supramundane, there is no self, and thereby accomplishes patience, attaining the patience of non-arising and the patience of the non-arising of dharmas, then the merit attained by the bodhisattva who gains the wisdom of patience far surpasses the merit attained by the bodhisattva who gives the seven treasures.

The World-Honored One has already spoken many times about the merit a bodhisattva obtains from giving the seven treasures; that merit is immeasurable and boundless, beyond counting. When a bodhisattva practices giving, there is not only merit, but merit (puṇya) can also arise from it. Because merit increases, the mind-ground can be purified, the mental disposition becomes pliant, meditative concentration advances, wisdom grows, the path-work progresses, and one gains genuine experiential benefit of merit — this is the retribution a bodhisattva obtains from the giving of wealth. As for the other bodhisattva, who has already cultivated to the point of attaining patience, deep within he is keenly aware that all dharmas are without self, and therefore he has realized the wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas.

Patience that all dharmas are without self — to what degree does this patience extend? There is the patience of the Hīnayāna, attained through the eradication of the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi-prahāṇa), that the five aggregates are without self — the patience of non-arising; and there is the Mahāyāna patience of non-arising and the patience of the non-arising of dharmas. The Hīnayāna patience of non-arising is divided into the four fruits and the four approaches. The patience of those approaching the first fruit, although not yet the patience of truly eradicating the view of self, still accepts on the level of the mind consciousness that the five aggregates are illusory and unreal, and diligently and energetically engages in contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā), heading toward the true eradication of the view of self. At this point what remains lacking is the manas's acceptance of the principle that the five aggregates are without self; this requires the manas to continually engage in contemplative practice and investigation within meditative concentration. Once the manas understands, that is the true eradication of the view of self, and one then becomes a person of the first fruit, a srotāpanna.

After becoming a srotāpanna, one must still carry out deep and detailed contemplative practice on the principle that the five aggregates are without self. This is a process in which the mind consciousness and the manas gain ever deeper wisdom of the patience of non-arising, a process of gradually gaining meditative power and eradicating afflictions, and even more a process in which the manas slowly eradicates its attachment to the self of the five aggregates. In this process, both the mind consciousness and the manas need to continually be patient, patient at ever deeper levels, until the manas completely eradicates its attachment to the self of persons — this is the patience of non-arising attained by Hīnayāna practitioners.

The Mahāyāna patience of non-arising is what bodhisattvas attain after realizing the eighth consciousness. Bodhisattvas must not only be patient with the principle that the five aggregates are without self, but must even more deeply be patient with the principle that the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha, is unborn and undying; they must deeply accept the non-arising of the eighth consciousness, accept its dual nature of emptiness and existence, accept its nature of neither defiled nor pure (na saṃkleśo na vyavadānam), accept all the middle-way characteristics of the eighth consciousness, accept all aspects of the eighth consciousness's nature in every respect. Then the bodhisattva's mind will become ever purer, meditative power ever stronger, afflictions ever lighter, and wisdom ever deeper and more subtle. The experiential benefit of merit within his own mind will become ever more vast, and the bodhisattva's stages will gradually advance from the seventh abiding stage to the ten conduct stages and the ten dedication stages; from breaking through the first barrier, to breaking through the second barrier, and then to breaking through the final barrier, both meditative concentration and wisdom becoming deeper and more subtle.

However, this is still patience within the scope of the selflessness of persons with respect to the five aggregates; the scope is not yet vast enough, and the patience is not yet deep enough. One must reach the patience of the non-arising of dharmas of bodhisattvas at the first bhūmi and above, for then the scope of patience is broader and the wisdom of patience deeper and more expansive. The patience of the non-arising of dharmas of bhūmi bodhisattvas is the acceptance that all dharmas are without self; this is not only realizing the selflessness of persons, but at the same time realizing the selflessness of dharmas, with their wisdom of the selflessness of dharmas and the wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas increasing bhūmi by bhūmi, ever deeper and more wondrous.

Because bhūmi bodhisattvas can directly observe the tathāgatagarbha's functioning within the five aggregates, and can directly observe the tathāgatagarbha's functioning upon the myriad dharmas of the eighteen realms, they deeply know how the tathāgatagarbha gives rise to the five aggregates and how it gives rise to the myriad dharmas of the eighteen realms. On all dharmas, the bodhisattva observes the modes of activity of the tathāgatagarbha, knowing that every dharma is generated by the tathāgatagarbha employing its mental factors to output seeds. Not a single dharma can, apart from the tathāgatagarbha, have its own arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing; it is only because of the tathāgatagarbha that all dharma-marks can be produced, that all dharma-marks can remain for a time, that all dharma-marks can gradually mutate, and that all dharma-marks can disperse and vanish. Apart from the tathāgatagarbha, no dharma-mark can arise, abide, change, or cease; therefore all dharma-marks are themselves false and unreal, like dreams, illusions, bubbles, and shadows, like flowers in the sky, utterly unobtainable — their essence is all the tathāgatagarbha. Since all dharmas are not real, have no self-nature, and are all of the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, they are of course without self.

Here "all dharmas" includes all dharmas both worldly and supramundane: whatever is manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, born subsequently, existing within the three-realm world — including all dharmas of past lives, all dharmas of future lives, and all dharmas of the present life, including all dharmas of the worlds of the ten directions — all of these are without self. Specifically, all dharmas include material form (rūpa) and mind (citta). Material form includes the material universe, the receptacle-world, including the living environment needed by sentient beings, and principally includes the five-aggregate physical bodies of sentient beings, namely the five faculties, the five sense objects, and form included in the dharma base. Mind dharmas include the seven consciousnesses and the mental factors of the seven consciousnesses. In summary, these are the six faculties, six sense objects, and six consciousnesses of sentient beings — the dharmas of the eighteen realms, the twelve bases, and the five aggregates.

These dharmas all exist, arise and cease, change, and function within the one true dharma realm, the tathāgatagarbha; all are produced, manifested, and sustained by the true mind, the tathāgatagarbha. Because they are all produced and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha, they are dharmas that arise and cease, dharmas lacking self-mastery (avaśatā) and autonomy, dharmas that cannot be their own masters, dharmas of selflessness. A dharma with self-nature would not arise, cease, and mutate; it would be able to be its own master, able to exist independently by itself, needing no other conditions, able to endure forever, perfect and complete in all merits and functions.

Selfless dharmas do not possess these qualities. Selfless dharmas cannot exist independently; they need to rely on external conditions to exist and function, and they also need the tathāgatagarbha to continuously transmit seeds to maintain their existence and operation; otherwise they would cease. Therefore all dharmas in the three-realm world arise, cease, and mutate, and are all without self. As for the supramundane dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, although it has a certain portion of self-nature, being able to exist independently, needing no external conditions, requiring no birth or death, being free and autonomous, it nevertheless still contains the defiled karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses; these karmic seeds are subject to arising, ceasing, and mutation, and will drag the tathāgatagarbha into change as well, causing some influence upon the merits and functions of the tathāgatagarbha.

Because the seeds within the tathāgatagarbha at this time are subject to perfuming by the seven consciousnesses, and since the seeds within can be perfumed, the tathāgatagarbha as a whole is not unchanging, and thus is not entirely possessed of self-nature. From another perspective, the tathāgatagarbha itself also has its own consciousness seeds flowing forth; these consciousness seeds arise and cease and mutate moment by moment, which is what maintains the existence and operation of the tathāgatagarbha; therefore the tathāgatagarbha is also not entirely possessed of self-nature, and is still of a selfless nature. Only the Dharmakāya at the buddha stage, the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), is completely possessed of self-nature; at that time the arising, ceasing, and mutation of the karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses has ended, the undefiled consciousness is no longer perfumed, no longer mutates, has no seeds of arising and ceasing, and the flow of its own consciousness seeds has also stopped, with no phenomenon of momentary arising and ceasing existing. Therefore the undefiled consciousness at the buddha stage is the complete and thorough self; its merits and functions can be fully exercised, no longer obstructed and limited by the defiled karmic seeds of the seven consciousnesses.

Because bodhisattvas have realized the selflessness of all dharmas and can be patient with the selflessness of all dharmas, they attain the profound wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas; their experiential benefit of merit is extremely abundant, immense, and deep, beyond the reach of calculation and analogy. Bodhisattvas will, by means of this profound seed-wisdom of consciousness-only, gradually enter the buddha stage, with merit and wisdom both perfectly complete, becoming the honored one of the three-realm world, the teacher of the assemblies of humans and gods, endowed with the merits and benefits of the ten epithets. They can establish lands in the worlds of the ten directions, manifest becoming buddhas, and extensively deliver immeasurable sentient beings. Therefore, when a bodhisattva realizes the selflessness of all dharmas, the merits and experiential benefits of his wisdom of the patience of the non-arising of dharmas far surpass the merit and virtue of a bodhisattva's giving of the seven treasures; the difference between them is incomparable and beyond words.