宗鏡錄 34.11

34.11

Answer: Not having faith in all dharmas is the mark of having faith in tathatā. For within the principle of tathatā, there are originally no dharmas. If one sees dharmas as existing, this is having faith in dharmas and not having faith in tathatā. Therefore, for those without the causes and conditions of having long planted the seeds of the vast bodhi of the ekayāna, it is exceedingly difficult to arouse faith in an instant. Thus the ancestral master's verse says: 'When great conditions unite with faith, / One may enter the mirror of the source'—from this one knows it is no small condition. As the Laṅkāvatārasūtra says: 'At that time the World-Honoured One told the Bodhisattva Mahāmati: "Those who embrace the Great Vehicle embrace all buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas, and śrāvakas. Those who embrace all buddhas, bodhisattvas, pratyekabuddhas, and śrāvakas embrace all sentient beings. Those who embrace all sentient beings embrace the True Dharma. Those who embrace the True Dharma keep the lineage of the buddhas unbroken. When the lineage of the buddhas is unbroken, one can fully understand and obtain the supreme entrance. Knowing and obtaining the supreme entrance, bodhisattva mahāsattvas constantly obtain transformation births to establish the Great Vehicle, with the power of the ten masteries manifest diverse forms and figures, penetrate the characteristics of the forms, species, desires, and kleśas of sentient beings, and teach the Dharma in accord with reality. 'In accord with reality' means without divergence. 'In accord with reality' means without marks of coming or going; all fabrications cease—this is called 'in accord with reality'."' It also says: 'The Buddha said: "Just awaken to what is directly perceived by one's own citta, and conceptual fabrications will not arise; one will be peaceful and happy, and worldly affairs will cease forever." "Peaceful and happy" means quiet, wondrous, and constant. "Worldly affairs will cease forever" means that cognitive graspings have already been severed. This can be called encountering the complete treasure-trove and abruptly cutting off all desires, arriving at constant and joyful nirvāṇa with nowhere further to go. At this boundary between ordinary and sage, it is like reaching one's homeland, having fully reached the root as the support for both delusion and awakening.' The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra says: 'The vajra treasure-trove has neither lack nor diminution.' A verse in the Avataṃsakasūtra says: 'Diverse transformations of measureless power, / Equal to the fine dust of all worlds— / Desiring to comprehend that all arise from citta, / A bodhisattva with this first brings forth the resolve.' The 'Chapter on the Original Limit' in the Baozang lun says: 'Therefore the original limit is nameless, and gives names to the nameless; the original limit is markless, and gives names to the markless. Once names and marks are established, deceptive delusion then arises; the principle of the true unity sinks, and the source of the Way and its affairs become hidden. Therefore, the uncarved block of the nameless universally penetrates all things; it cannot be named or designated, it exceeds limits and boundaries, and is of one substance without duality. Thus a sūtra says: "The manifold array and the myriad images / Are sealed by a single dharma"—that is, the original limit. Yet the principle of the original limit has neither self nor other, is neither one nor different, contains the single pneumas, and encompasses all existents. If there is a person whose self-nature is pure, who is born holding to the one and within has no conceptual fabrications, they are called a sage. Yet within the true limit, there is no dharma of a sage that differs by so much as a speck of dust. If there is a person whose self-nature is pure, who is born holding to the one and within has conceptual fabrications, being naturally turbid and disordered, they are called an ordinary person. Yet within the true limit, there is no dharma of an ordinary person that differs by so much as a speck of dust. Thus a sūtra says: "The Buddha-nature is equal, vast and difficult to measure; ordinary and sage are non-dual, and all is complete." It is fully present in grasses and trees, pervasively present in ants, and even in specks of dust and tips of hairs, there is none that is not born holding to the one. Therefore it is said: "If one can comprehend the one, myriad affairs are completed." Therefore sentient beings all ride upon the one and are born; hence it is called the "one vehicle" (ekayāna). If one is deluded, then there are differences; if one is awakened, then there is oneness. Hence it is said: "The prior thought is ordinary, the subsequent thought is sage." It is also said: "In a single thought, one knows all dharmas." Therefore one is all, and all is one. Hence it is said: "By means of the dharma of the one, efficacy is accomplished in the myriad images." Thus a sūtra says: "If all has citta, it is deluded; if all has no citta, it pervades the ten directions." Therefore the true one is the myriad differences, and the myriad differences are the true one. Just as when the ocean surges with a thousand waves, the thousand waves are just the ocean; in all of them there is no difference. Even to the myriad things being born holding to the one, those myriad things are also the one. Why is this? Because the root is one, the branches have no difference. For example, when sandalwood produces sandalwood branches, they are not of the toon tree. Thus a verse in the Lotus Sūtra says: "In the buddha-lands of the ten directions, / There is only the dharma of the one vehicle." The one vehicle is just the one mind. All the myriad existents and the empty space of the ten directions are all manifested from the seeds of the one mind of tathatā. Just as sandalwood produces sandalwood branches and orchids produce orchid leaves, even to the root and branches, the middle and the edges, there are no different characteristics. Therefore it is said: "One is all, all is one." If one can be like this, what worry is there that all will not be completed? If one can be completely and perfectly penetrating like this, there are no further uncomprehended dharmas beyond this; then there is no principle that is not illuminated, and no affair that is not exhausted. For a single dharma can accomplish all dharmas. As the commentary on the Avataṃsakasūtra says: "If one enters this contemplation method, then wisdom corresponds with citta. Therefore the cause is studied from citta, the fruit is accomplished by citta, objects are manifested from citta, and understanding arises from citta. States and supernormal powers are citta, power and functional operations are citta, manifest distinctions are citta, and what is obtained through discernment is citta. Even seeking good spiritual friends and going to buddha-lands are all citta. There is nothing obtained outside of citta—what doubt can there be?" Therefore know that when citta is defiled, the marks of the Sahā world appear; when citta is pure, the Lotus Treasury encompasses space. Revolving, the wheel of consciousness constantly turns; interwoven, it never leaves the net of citta. Thus Sāgaradhvaja, without rising from quietude, broadly enacted the gates of buddha-deeds of the ten directions; Sudhana, without leaving the place of the Way, traversed all the dharmas of the one hundred and ten cities. Therefore Mañjuśrī is just the wondrous prajñā that one's own citta can realize. When Sudhana reached Maitreya, after the buddhahood of the one mind was perfected, he was sent back to see Mañjuśrī; when the causal stage was on the verge of its culmination, he was made to look back at the source of citta, which is without difference, because not a single thought had ever moved. The reason why upon visiting Mañjuśrī again he did not see his form was simply because he comprehended the empty prajñā of his own citta; this was truly seeing Mañjuśrī. Samantabhadra is the inexhaustible wondrous practice of the dharmadhātu realized by one's own citta. Although Sudhana visited good spiritual friends throughout the dharmadhātu, when he wished to see Samantabhadra, without relying on another's direction, right at the place of the initial assembly and original attainment, before the Tathāgata's seat, he aroused the thought to seek him and immediately saw him with that thought. Samantabhadra, before the Tathāgata, had never moved from the start. This precisely reveals that contemplating citta is seeing this wondrous mark: seeing, hearing, realizing, and entering through beholding the mark before one is just seeing citta. Therefore, Samantabhadra's bodily mark is like empty space, pervading all places. Hence, when Bodhisattva Samantacakṣus and others entered hundreds of thousands of samādhis seeking Samantabhadra, they could not find him, merely because they thought to separate from thoughts to enter absorption and detest objects to seek the true, unaware that every speck of dust is Mañjuśrī and every thought is Samantabhadra. Therefore, the single person of Sudhana wielded compassion and wisdom to broadly span the ten directions horizontally, and cultivated vows and practices to exhaust the three times vertically. From beginning to end, cause fulfilled and fruit rounded, he clearly manifested the one mind as an exemplar. Comprehensively gathering all, newly practicing bodhisattvas and all contemplation practitioners must emulate this cultivation. Apart from this contemplation of citta, there is no other supreme practice. Even with the six pāramitās and myriad practices, if one does not comprehend one's own citta, they all become provisional and gradual; their fruit returns to production and cessation, and their retribution is among humans and devas. If one can employ citta, blessing and wisdom are inexhaustible. As the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: "Bodhisattva mahāsattvas, knowing the true mark of all dharmas, neither grasp nor abandon, and destroy nothing; practicing the unobtainable prajñāpāramitā, with a mind of great compassion they turn back to cultivate practices of blessing. The initial gate of the practices of blessing is first to practice giving. When a bodhisattva practices the prajñāpāramitā, their wisdom is clear and sharp, and they are able to distinguish the blessings of giving. Although the given objects may be the same, whether the blessings and virtues are many or few depends on the superiority or inferiority of the mind. For example, Śāriputra offered a single bowl of food to the Buddha, and the Buddha immediately gave it away to a dog and asked Śāriputra: 'You gave food to me, and I gave food to a dog—who obtains greater blessings?' Śāriputra said: 'As I understand the meaning of the Buddha's Dharma, the Buddha giving to the dog obtains greater blessings.' Śāriputra's wisdom was the highest among all humans, and the Buddha's field of blessing was the foremost, yet it was not equal to the Buddha giving to a dog—a wretched field—obtaining exceedingly vast blessings. By this we know that great blessings arise from the mind and do not depend on the field. Śāriputra, by a thousand million times, could not equal the Buddha's mind."