少室六門 1.80

1.80

Question: In what way is contemplating the mind called understanding? Answer: When the bodhisattva mahāsattva practices the deep prajñāpāramitā, they understand that the catur-mahābhūta and pañca-skandha are originally empty and without self. They understand and see that their own mind's arising and functioning has two distinctions. What are the two? The first is the pure mind, and the second is the defiled mind. These two kinds of minds are natural to the dharmadhātu and originally coexist. Although free from provisional conditions, they depend on one another. The pure mind always delights in good causes; the defiled substance constantly contemplates evil deeds. If one is not defiled by it, one is called a sage, and can then leave all suffering far behind and realize the joy of nirvāṇa. If one creates karma following the defiled mind and suffers its entanglement and covering, one is called an ordinary person, sinking in the traidhātuka and enduring various kinds of suffering. Why is this? Because that defiled mind obstructs the substance of tathatā. The Daśabhūmika Sūtra states: 'Within the bodies of sentient beings there is a vajra Buddha-nature, like the disc of the sun whose substantive illumination is complete, vast, and boundless; it is only covered by the heavy clouds of the pañca-skandha, like the light of a lamp inside a jar unable to show itself.' Again, the Nirvāṇa Sūtra states: 'All sentient beings possess the Buddha-nature; because avidyā covers it, they do not attain vimokṣa.' The Buddha-nature is the nature of awakening. When one awakens oneself and awakens others, and the wisdom of awakening is clear, it is called vimokṣa. Therefore know that all good has awakening as its root; through the root of awakening, one can then display the trees of all merits, and the fruit of nirvāṇa is accomplished on account of this. Contemplating the mind in this way may be called understanding.