宗鏡錄 3.15

3.15

答。若是妄心見聞。須假因緣能所生起。如云。眼具九緣生等。若無色空和合之緣。見性無由得發。五根亦然。皆仗緣起。斯則緣會而生。緣散而滅。無自主宰。畢竟性空。如楞伽經偈云。心為工技兒。意如和技者。五識為伴侶。妄想觀技眾。如歌舞立技之人。隨他拍轉。拍緩則步緩。拍急則步急。五根亦如是。但隨意轉。如云。身非念輪。隨念而轉。何者。意地若生。身輪動作。意地若息。根境寂然。真心則不爾。常照常現。鐵圍不能匿其輝。遍界遍空。穹蒼不能覆其體。非純非雜。萬法不能隱其真。無住無依。塵勞不能易其性。豈假前塵發耀。對境生知。自然寂照靈知。湛然無際。故首楞嚴經云。佛告阿難。如是六根。由彼覺明。有明明覺。失彼精了。黏妄發光。是以汝今離暗離明。無有見體。離動離靜。元無聽質。無通無塞。嗅性不生。非變非恬。甞無所出。不離不合。覺觸本無。無滅無生。了知安寄。汝但不循動靜合離。恬變通塞。生滅暗明。如是十二諸有為相。隨拔一根。脫黏內伏。伏歸元真。發本明耀。耀性發明。諸餘五黏應拔圓脫。不由前塵所起知見。明不循根。寄根明發。由是六根互相為用。阿難。汝豈不知。今此會中。阿那律陀。無目而見。跋難陀龍。無耳而聽。殑伽神女。非鼻聞香。驕梵鉢提。異舌知味。舜若多神。無身有觸。如來光中。映令暫現。既為風質。其體元無。諸滅盡定。得寂聲聞。如此會中摩訶迦葉。久滅意根。圓明了知。不因心念。阿難。今汝諸根。若圓拔已。內瑩發光。如是浮塵。及器世間諸變化相。如湯消氷。應念化成無上知覺。阿難。如彼世人。聚見於眼。若令急合。暗相現前。六根黤然。頭足相類。彼人以手循體外繞。彼雖不見。頭足一辯。知覺是同。緣見因明。暗成無見。不明自發。則諸暗相永不能昏。根塵既消。云何覺明。不成圓妙。釋曰。如彼世人聚見於眼者。此先明世見。非眼莫觀。若令急合。則無所見。與耳等。五根相似。彼人以手。循體外繞。雖不假眼。而亦自知。此況真見。不藉外境。緣見因明暗成無見者。此牒世間眼見。須仗明暗因緣。根塵和合。方成於見。無見。不明自發者。此正明真見之時。見性非眼。既不屬眼。又何假明暗根塵所發。則不明之明。無見之見。自然寂照靈知。何曾間斷。且世間明暗虛幻出沒之相。又焉能覆蓋乎。是以明不能明。暗不能暗也。故云。則諸暗相。永不能昏。真性天然。豈非圓妙。所以學人問先德云。如何是大悲千手眼。答云。如人夜裏摸得枕子。

Answer: If it is the seeing and hearing of the deluded mind, it must rely on causes and conditions, subject and object, to arise—as in the saying that the eye requires nine conditions to generate [vision], and so forth. If the conditions of form and space combining are absent, the seeing-nature has no way to manifest. The five sense faculties are also like this: they all rely on conditioned origination. Thus, they arise when conditions assemble, and cease when conditions disperse; having no autonomous controller, they are ultimately empty by nature. As a verse in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra says: 'Citta is the acrobat, manas is the jester, the five consciousnesses are their companions, and conceptualization is the audience watching the act.' Like an acrobat standing to sing and dance, turning according to another's beat—if the beat is slow, his steps are slow; if the beat is fast, his steps are fast—the five sense faculties are also like this, merely turning in accordance with the mind. As it is said: 'The body is not a wheel of thought, yet it turns following thought.' Why? If the mental ground arises, the body's wheel moves; if the mental ground ceases, faculties and objects become quiescent. The true mind is not like this: it constantly illuminates and constantly manifests, and the Iron Ring Mountains cannot conceal its radiance; it pervades the realms and pervades space, and the azure vault cannot cover its substance; it is neither pure nor mixed, and the myriad phenomena cannot hide its reality; it has no abiding and no reliance, and the defilements of dust cannot alter its nature. How could it rely on external dust to radiate light, or generate knowledge in response to objects? Naturally, it is tranquilly illuminating, numinously knowing, and serenely boundless. Therefore the Śūraṅgamasūtra says: 'The Buddha told Ānanda: "These six faculties are due to that luminous awareness: there being a brightness that illuminates awareness, losing that quintessential discernment, it adheres to delusion and emits light. For this reason, now, apart from darkness and apart from light, you have no substance of seeing; apart from movement and apart from stillness, there is originally no substance of hearing; without clearance and without obstruction, the smelling-nature does not arise; neither changing nor bland, taste has nowhere to come forth; neither separating nor joining, sensory contact is fundamentally nonexistent; without ceasing and without arising, where can discernment be lodged? If you simply do not follow the twelve conditioned marks—movement and stillness, joining and separating, blandness and change, clearance and obstruction, ceasing and arising, darkness and light—and extract any one faculty, untying its adhesion and subduing it inwardly, subduing it to return to original truth, it will emit its fundamental brightness. When the radiant nature is illuminated, the other five adhesions will be extracted and completely untied. Not relying on knowledge and vision arisen from external dust, brightness does not follow the faculties, but lodges in the faculties to emit brightness; hence the six faculties function interchangeably. Ānanda, do you not know that in this assembly now, Aniruddha sees without eyes; the nāga Upananda hears without ears; the Gaṅgā goddess smells fragrance without a nose; Gavāmpati tastes flavors with an abnormal tongue; the deity Śūnyatā experiences touch without a body, temporarily manifesting within the Tathāgata's light, yet being of the substance of wind, his body is fundamentally nonexistent; and the śrāvakas who have attained cessation and tranquility, such as Mahākāśyapa in this assembly, have long extinguished the mental faculty, yet are completely, brightly, and clearly aware without relying on mental thoughts? Ānanda, now if your faculties are completely extracted, glowing and emitting light within, these fleeting dusts and all the changing marks of the vessel world will, like ice melting in hot water, transform in an instant into unsurpassed awareness. Ānanda, consider an ordinary person who gathers seeing in his eyes: if you make him suddenly close them, dark marks appear before him, the six faculties are shrouded in darkness, and head and feet seem indistinguishable. If that person feels around the outside of his body with his hand, although he cannot see, once he distinguishes head from feet, his awareness is the same. Conditioned seeing relies on light, while darkness renders it non-seeing; but if brightness manifests of itself without light, all dark marks can never dim it. When faculties and dust are dissolved, how could luminous awareness fail to become complete and wondrous?"' Explanation: Regarding 'consider an ordinary person who gathers seeing in his eyes,' this first clarifies worldly seeing: without eyes one cannot observe; if made to close them suddenly, one sees nothing, similar to the other five faculties such as the ear. When that person feels around the outside of his body with his hand, although not relying on eyes, he still knows on his own; this illustrates that true seeing does not depend on external objects. Regarding 'conditioned seeing relies on light, while darkness renders it non-seeing,' this cites worldly ocular seeing, which must rely on the conditions of light and darkness, and the combination of faculties and dust, to effect seeing. 'Non-seeing manifests of itself without light' directly clarifies the moment of true seeing: the seeing-nature is not the eye; since it does not belong to the eye, how could it rely on what is emitted by light, darkness, faculties, and dust? Thus the brightness that is not light and the seeing that is not vision are naturally tranquilly illuminating and numinously knowing—how could they ever be interrupted? Moreover, how could the worldly marks of light and darkness, unreal and fleeting, ever cover it? For this reason, light cannot make it light, and darkness cannot make it dark. Therefore it says: 'All dark marks can never dim it.' The true nature is spontaneous; how could it not be complete and wondrous? Therefore, when a student asked an ancient master, 'What are the thousand hands and eyes of Great Compassion?', the master replied, 'Like a person reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night.'