宗鏡錄 3.9

3.9

Answer: It is truly as you ask: one must distinguish citta with subtlety. This wonder is difficult to know; only a Buddha can discern it. It is merely because those of the triyāna aspiring to the Way have discrepancies in their views: they mistakenly point to the deluded citta, taking it to be real; they mistake a treacherous thief for their true child, having their household treasures utterly robbed; and they gather fish eyes to serve as black-dragon pearls, blindly misleading the eye of wisdom. Consequently, they cause ignorant children to sink into the manifold barriers of the prison of existence, and perverse and inverted people to drown in the terrifying waves of the river of views, playing amidst fierce flames within a decaying house, forgetting their suffering and fatigue, and lying in a great dream through the long night, confused about citta and confused about their nature. All of this comes from clinging to this cognitive conditionality, taking it to be one's own body, forsaking this true citta, and mistaking other sights and sounds for it. This is the failure of world-renouncing non-Buddhists and householder worldlings. Furthermore, those of the triyāna who aspire to the Way, scholars of doctrine, and the Chan lineage are also deluded about this citta, clinging to the Buddha's expedient means, which has caused the teaching to open into eight nets and the vehicles to correspond to four faculties, bypassing a single thought to gallop afar through three asaṃkhyeya kalpas, expending effort in vain across great kalpas, and departing from the place of jewels to linger long in the conjured city, their tracks exhausted on the long road. This is the failure of those of provisional faculties and lesser fruits, down to those in the Chan lineage who fail to grasp the intent. Therefore, the Śūraṅgamasūtra states: 'The Buddha told Ānanda: All sentient beings, from beginningless time, have undergone various inversions, their karmic seeds naturally clustering like akṣa fruits. The reason practitioners cannot attain unsurpassed bodhi, but instead separately become śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas, or become non-Buddhists, devas, māras, and their retinues, is entirely because they do not know the two kinds of roots and cultivate in confusion and error, just like boiling gravel hoping to make delicious food—even after kalpas as numerous as dust motes, they will never achieve it. What are the two kinds? Ānanda: The first is the root of beginningless saṃsāra, which is that you and all sentient beings presently take the citta that grasps conditions to be your self-nature. The second is the fundamentally pure substance of beginningless bodhi and nirvāṇa, which is your present primordial illumination of the essence of consciousness that can produce all conditions, yet is abandoned by conditions. Because all sentient beings abandon this fundamental illumination, though they act all day long, they are unconscious of it and vainly enter the various destinies.' Explanation: These two kinds of roots are precisely the two cittas: the true and the deluded. The first, 'the root of beginningless saṃsāra,' is fundamental avidyā; this is the deluded citta. Initially confused about the one dharmadhātu, unconsciously and suddenly a thought arises. Sudden arising is itself 'beginningless'—just like flowers appearing before strained eyes, or dreams occurring in deep sleep: there is fundamentally no point of origin, nor any fixed place from which it is born. All arise from deluded thoughts, not from other external conditions. From this, the subtle karmic consciousness is formed, which then gives rise to the evolving consciousness, evolving to function as the subject citta; subsequently, it gives rise to the manifesting consciousness, which manifests external spheres. All sentient beings together employ these three consciousnesses—karmic, evolving, and manifesting—to give rise to internal and external grasping of conditions, taking them to be the self-nature of citta. Saṃsāra continues because of this, which serves as its root. The second, 'the fundamentally pure substance of beginningless bodhi and nirvāṇa,' is this true citta, also called the intrinsically pure citta, and also called pure original enlightenment. Because it is without arising and without birth, its own substance motionless, unpolluted by saṃsāra and unpurified by nirvāṇa, it is designated as 'pure.' This pure substance is the primordial essence of the eight consciousnesses, fundamentally luminous and complete in itself. Because it accords with defilements unconsciously and does not maintain its nature, just as an empty valley responds to echoes, emitting sounds according to conditions, this is also like that: capable of producing all phenomena, it establishes the two divisions of darśanabhāga and nimittabhāga, citta and objects mutually generating each other. Merely according with defiled and pure conditions, one abandons this complete and eternal nature, just as water follows the wind to make various waves. Because of this, sentient beings lose the root to pursue the branches, sinking completely, unaware, and vainly enduring false suffering. Although they endure false suffering, true bliss always abides; though they undergo ascending and descending, original enlightenment is unmoving, just as water making waves does not lose its wet nature. They only know how to transform citta into objects, mistaking awakening for delusion, accumulating delusion upon delusion, vainly passing through kalpas as numerous as dust and sands, generating dreams from dreams, perpetually darkened in the long night. Therefore the sūtra says: 'You should know that all sentient beings, having saṃsāra continue from beginningless time, are all due to not knowing the constantly abiding true citta, the pure and luminous substance of nature, and instead using various false thoughts; these thoughts are not real, hence there is transmigration.' Because they do not comprehend the unmoving true citta, they follow the deluded consciousness of transmigration. This consciousness has no substance and is not apart from the true citta; originally, in the signless source of truth, it evolves to become the deluded thoughts of sentient beings. Just as wind stirs waves on a clear pond, though the waves move, they constantly abide in the unmoving source; just as a cataract generates flowers in the sky, though the flowers appear, they are not separate from the nature of empty space. When the cataract dissolves, space is clear; when the waves subside, the pond is pure. There is only the one true citta, universally pervading the dharmadhātu. Furthermore, this citta is not born from the past, does not abide in the present, and does not perish into the future; unmoved by ascent or descent, its nature and characteristics are as one. Thus, transmitted from above, this true citta is taken as the source. Cultivating apart from this, one is entirely entangled in Māra's snares; attaining anything else, one sinks completely into the forest of heresy. Therefore, it can stir deep compassion and generate redoubled pity. For this reason, the Second Patriarch sought this deluded citta and could not find it, whereupon the First Patriarch transmitted the robe; Ānanda clung to this deluded citta, which is why the Tathāgata reprimanded him. As the sūtra says: 'The Buddha told Ānanda: You now wish to know the path of śamatha and desire to emerge from saṃsāra; I now ask you again.' Immediately the Tathāgata raised his golden arm, bent his five webbed fingers, and said to Ānanda: 'Do you see now or not?' Ānanda said: 'I see.' The Buddha said: 'What do you see?' Ānanda said: 'I see the Tathāgata raising his arm and bending his fingers into a luminous fist, dazzling my citta and eyes.' The Buddha said: 'With what do you see it?' Ānanda said: 'I, together with the great assembly, see it with our eyes.' The Buddha told Ānanda: 'Now answer me: the Tathāgata bent his fingers into a luminous fist, dazzling your citta and eyes; your eyes can see, but with what as citta do you confront the brilliance of my fist?' Ānanda said: 'The Tathāgata is now inquiring into where the citta resides, and I use citta to investigate and pursue it; that which can investigate is what I take to be citta.' The Buddha said: 'Ha, Ānanda! This is not your citta.' Startled, Ānanda left his seat, joined his palms, stood up, and addressed the Buddha: 'If this is not my citta, what should it be called?' The Buddha told Ānanda: 'This is the deluded conceptual characteristic of external dust, deceiving your true nature. Because from beginningless time down to your present life you have taken a thief to be your child, losing your original eternity, you have undergone transmigration.' Ānanda addressed the Buddha: 'World-Honoured One, I am the Buddha's favored younger brother; because my citta loved the Buddha, you caused me to leave the household life. How could my citta not only make offerings to the Tathāgata, but even travel throughout realms as numerous as the sands of the Ganges to serve all Buddhas and good spiritual friends, generate great vigor, and perform all difficult dharmic activities—all by using this citta? Even if one slanders the Dharma and permanently regresses from roots of goodness, it is also on account of this citta. If this manifestation is not citta, then I have no citta and am identical to earth and wood; apart from this awareness and cognition, nothing else exists. Why does the Tathāgata say this is not citta? I am truly terrified, and the great assembly is without exception perplexed. Please bestow great compassion to instruct those who are not yet awakened.' At that time, the World-Honoured One instructed Ānanda and the great assembly, wishing to cause their cittas to enter the tolerance of the unarisen dharmas. From the lion seat, he rubbed Ānanda's crown and told him: 'The Tathāgata has always said that what all dharmas arise from is manifested by citta alone; all causes and effects, worlds and dust motes, take citta as their substance. Ānanda, if throughout the worlds, regarding all that exists, even down to blades of grass, leaves, strands of thread, and knots, when you investigate their root source, each has a substance and nature. Even empty space has a name and appearance; how much more so should the pure, wonderfully pure, and luminous citta, which is the nature of all cittas, be without a substance of its own? If you stubbornly hold that the nature discerned by conceptualization and contemplation must be citta, then this citta should possess a complete nature of its own apart from all dust-activities of forms, sounds, scents, tastes, and tangibles. Just as you now listen to my Dharma, this is discrimination dependent upon sound. Even if you extinguish all seeing, hearing, awareness, and knowing, keeping an inner tranquility, it is still the shadow-affair of discriminating dharmic dust. I am not commanding you to hold that it is not citta, but you must examine citta with subtlety: if apart from the front dust there is a discriminating nature, that is truly your citta; if the discriminating nature has no substance apart from dust, then this is merely the shadow-affair of discriminating the front dust. Dust is not constantly abiding; when it transforms and ceases, this citta will be identical to turtle hair and rabbit horns, and your dharmakāya will be identical to annihilation. Who then would cultivate and realize the tolerance of unarisen dharmas?' An ancient commentary says: 'That which can investigate is the deluded citta; all have the function of cognitive conditionality, and thus may also be called citta. However, it is not the true citta. The deluded citta is a reflection upon the true citta. Therefore it is said: Your body and your citta are all objects manifested within the wonderfully luminous true essence, the wonderful citta. If one clings to this reflection as real, when the reflection ceases, this citta is cut off. Hence it is said that if one clings to conditioning dust, it is identical to annihilation. Because the deluded citta grasps dust to form its substance, it is like a reflection in a mirror or a bubble upon water. Confused about the water and clinging to the waves, when the waves calm, citta ceases; confused about the mirror and clinging to the reflections, when the reflections vanish, citta is destroyed. If citta ceases, it becomes the annihilation view. If one knows that the wet nature is indestructible and the substance of the mirror is eternally bright, then the waves are fundamentally empty and the reflections are originally tranquil. Thus we know that the spheres and wisdom of the Buddhas pervade realms and pervade space, while the bodies and minds of worldlings are like shadows and reflections. If one clings to the branches as the root and takes the false to be true, only when saṃsāra appears will its unreality be verified. Hence the ancient sages said: Seeing the ore, one does not recognize the gold; only upon entering the furnace does one realize one's mistake.'