宗鏡錄 33.15

33.15

Answer: It is indeed so. What is called cessation now is only the cessation of the mind's characteristics, not the cessation of the mind's substance. Just as water has the characteristic of motion due to wind, because the wind ceases, the characteristic of motion immediately ceases, not the substance of the water. If the water ceased, the characteristic of motion would have to be cut off, because there would be neither that which is supported nor that which supports. Because the substance of water does not cease, the characteristic of motion continues. Sentient beings are also like this: through the power of avidyā, their minds are made to move; because avidyā ceases, the characteristic of motion immediately ceases, not the substance of the mind. If the mind ceased, sentient beings would be severed, because there would be neither that which is supported nor that which supports. Because the substance of the mind does not cease, the movement of the mind continues. Commentary: The treatise clarifies that both coarse and subtle minds and objects arise through the perfuming power of avidyā. However, they depend on causes and depend on conditions: the cause is non-awakening, and the condition is the deluded sensory object. This merely means that not awakening to one's own mind falsely gives rise to external objects. Therefore we know that objects have no intrinsic nature; they arise from the mind, arising in combination. Hence it is said: 'When the mind arises, phenomena arise; when the cause ceases, the condition ceases.' As for 'because the substance of water does not cease, the characteristic of motion continues,' this is an analogy for the intrinsic substance of the true mind, which is neither moving nor still. Due to the wind of avidyā arising, saṃsāra moves and shakes. When the wind of delusion subsides, the moving characteristics of the mind immediately cease, but the substance of the mind does not cease. For the substance of the mind is that which is supported, and the myriad phenomena are that which supports. If there were no support, that which is supported could not exist. Therefore we know that the substance of the one mind is the support of all existences, just as great space serves as the substance of the myriad images. Furthermore, the fundamental consciousness has two meanings: first, the meaning of deluded defilement, in which ordinary beings abide; second, the meaning of true purity, in which the eighth bhūmi abides. The Buddha ground abides solely in tathatā, and is solely named the taintless consciousness (amalavijñāna).