大乘起信論義記 3.435

3.435

“Does not rely on breath” refers to the object of counting the breaths; “physical forms” refers to the four marks—blue, yellow, red, and white—such as the skeleton meditation; the five marks of space, earth, water, and so on are all objects of focus in phenomenal samādhis; “seeing, hearing, perceiving, or cognizing” refers to the consciousness-totality, which together with the preceding makes ten totalities (*kṛtsnāyatana*). Alternatively, “seeing, hearing, and so on” can refer to the six dust-objects grasped by the scattered mind: investigating and thoroughly penetrating these objects, one knows they are only one’s own mind and no longer relies on or connects with them; thus it says “does not rely.” Next, the deluded conceptualizing mind generated in reliance on the aforementioned contrary objects is also cast off; hence it says “all conceptualizations are eliminated with each thought.” Since that which is cast off no longer exists, that which casts off is not established: settled and serene, this alone is called calm; hence it says “and the thought of eliminating them is also cast off.” Why are all minds and conceptualizations, both the eliminator and the eliminated, made not to remain? The explanation states: because all phenomena are fundamentally without conceptualization; now, wishing to conform to dharmatā, one must do so. “Unarising and unceasing from thought to thought, and so forth” further explains why dharmatā is signless: truly, because conceptualizations have no self-nature, exhaustively investigating them shows them to be empty; therefore, no intrinsic substance of arising and ceasing can be found. This is because arising itself is non-arising, and ceasing itself is non-ceasing, just as water in a mirage is fundamentally dry of itself.