大毘盧遮那成佛經疏 2.95

2.95

The sūtra says: “Master of Secrets! Having thus renounced selflessness, the master of the mind is sovereign, awakening to his own mind as originally unborn.” The “master of the mind” is the mind-king. Because it does not stagnate in existence or non-existence, the mind is unimpeded, and the wondrous deeds it undertakes can be accomplished at will; hence it is called “the master of the mind is sovereign.” That the master of the mind is sovereign clearly refers to the pure bodhicitta. Taking another turn, this illumination is doubly superior to that of the preceding kalpa. The mind-king is like pond water, intrinsically pure by nature. When the mental factors are cleansed away, it is like the clearing away of adventitious defilements. Therefore, when one realizes this purity of nature, one can awaken for oneself to the mind as originally unborn. Why is this? Because the mind's prior and subsequent limits are both ungraspable. For example, regarding the waves of the great ocean: because they arise from conditions, they do not not exist beforehand and not exist afterward. Yet the nature of water is not like this: when the waves arise from conditions, the nature of water did not not exist beforehand; when the conditions for the waves are exhausted, the nature of water does not not exist afterward. The mind-king is also like this: it has no prior or subsequent limits, for its prior and subsequent limits are severed. Although it encounters the wind of objects and arises and ceases in dependence on conditions, the nature of the mind is ever without arising or ceasing. Awakening to this mind as originally unborn is to gradually enter the syllable A gateway. At this time, one further departs from a layer of subtle delusional graspings—the defilements like sands of the Ganges such as the hundred and sixty minds—which is called the second asaṃkhyeya-kalpa. Therefore the sūtra says: “Knowing the nature of one's own mind is the yogin's practice that transcends two kalpas.” Here, the meanings of unconditioned saṃsāra, causes and conditions, arising and perishing, and so forth, are explained in detail in such texts as the Śrīmālā[devī-siṃhanāda-sūtra], the Ratnagotravibhāga, and the Fo xing lun. Here I merely clarify the essential doctrine, so I do not explain them in detail. However, looking from the very beginning to the end above, from the generation of the slightest hair of goodness up to transcending the two obscurations of persons and dharmas, existence and non-existence—although the doctrinal culmination becomes ever more manifest, wondrous, and profound—these are still antidotes to defilements external to the mind, and have not yet disclosed the various inconceivable secret matters within this mind; only from this point onward will they be spoken of. If one does not distinguish them in this comparative manner, ordinary dispositions would each cling to their prior habituations and fail to realize its subtlety.