宗鏡錄 35.6.1

35.6.1

Answer: It is simply the citta-characteristics of all ordinary beings and sages that are layer upon layer, and the citta-nature that is inexhaustible. This citta is vast; this citta is consummate and interfused; this citta encompasses all; this citta is esoteric. If there were no such one mind as the source, then among the gates of the teaching not a single dharma could arise, and the buddhas would not have a single word to speak. Having wholly returned to the purport of the citta, having extensively prepared the faculties of faith, consummate understanding being already complete, and not the slightest doubt arising, one must not rely solely on spoken words; the secret lies in practice in the citta. Simply use the water of concentration to secretly clarify, and the lamp of wisdom to shine ever more brightly. If one solely adheres to the texts to seek principle, clinging to the teachings to talk about the source, it is like entering the sea to count the grains of sand or looking up at the sky to number the stars: in the end one never sees it directly, and strays ever farther from the Way. An ancient said: 'Like heaven and earth thundering all day long, it does not equal the true principle.' Therefore, the student discards the texts to grasp the principle, sitting upright and stilling the feelings, beholding directly with the eye of the citta. This is called dwelling exclusively on a single object, cultivating the superior cause of concentration. Furthermore, as for the meaning of the Consummate Teaching: root and branch are interfused; principle and phenomenon are unobstructed. When speaking of the true and the false, ordinary beings and sages are luminously interpenetrating; when speaking of the dharmadhātu, principle and phenomenon distinctly contain each other. In a single verse on the Buddha's vision and knowledge, it is revealed without omission; in a single chapter on the Great Nirvāṇa, its substance and function are thoroughly exhausted. As the Avataṃsaka-sūtra says: 'There is no tathatā outside of wisdom for wisdom to enter, nor is there wisdom outside of tathatā that can realize tathatā.' It also says: 'There is no slight dharma that abides together with dharma.' Because when one adduces citta to subsume the object, there is no object outside of citta; when one adduces the object to subsume citta, there is no citta outside of the object. Because the nature has no duality of characteristics—characteristics are precisely nature—characteristics are interfused along with nature, and along with any one [characteristic], all are subsumed. Thus, outside nature there are no characteristics, so what dharma is not interfused? Within principle phenomena are established, so what gate cannot be entered? It can be described as bodhi wherever the eye touches, consummate realization in a single thought. Therefore, the Anantanirdeśa-sūtra says: 'Innumerable meanings are born from a single dharma; that single dharma is what is called signlessness.' The ancients said: 'This is the meaning of emergence.' The Lotus Sūtra says: 'Ultimately arriving at the stage of all-knowledge'; this is the dharma of gathering in. Thus the ten thousand transformations of the triyāna are born from the true characteristic, and ultimately return again to the one true characteristic. Thus beginning and end are not separated from the one mind; root and branch both abide in their proper positions. As the Lotus Sūtra says: 'In citta and characteristic, [they] personally believe; entering and exiting without difficulty.' One can thereby know the estate of the Mahāyāna, inheriting the stage of the buddha-lineage. Furthermore, initially the one produces the innumerable; later, the innumerable returns to the one. Now, the innumerable is not innumerable, and the one is also not one: this is precisely the realization of the Lotus Samādhi. Furthermore, the reason past virtuous ones designated it the 'Ocean of Teaching' is that it contains all dharmas, analogized to the great ocean: laterally it has no bounds, joining the sky in a single hue; empty space penetrates to the bottom of the ocean, and the ocean reflects empty sky. This is the Consummate Teaching: comprehensively subsuming all teachings to return to the true, all are utterly empty and pure; principle and phenomenon are unobstructed, like the mutual reflection of form and emptiness: form does not obstruct emptiness, and emptiness does not obstruct form. Virtues and functions are layer upon layer, being solely luminous and solely profound; endowed with the ten profound gates, layer upon layer without end, which is phenomenon-and-phenomenon non-obstruction. Like the ten virtues of the ocean mutually pervading, the ocean of citta contains all, profound and vast without limit. Therefore, the Dhāraṇī-sūtra of the Lord of the Country's Realm says in a verse: 'A single syllable expounds all dharmas; / for many kalpas there is no end. / Each and every syllable-gate is likewise so: / this is dwelling in the ground of the jewel-casket mantra.' Master Daosheng's commentary on the Lotus Sūtra says of the passage: 'A single hair of goodness, / raising a hand or bowing the head, / all have already realized buddhahood'—saying: 'Nothing is not an outflow of the Buddha; this is the purport of Nirvāṇa. Even non-Buddhist texts are also an outflow of the Buddhadharma; how much more so the internal dharma!' Because teachings great and small all flow from the Tathāgata's great compassion. From this we know that there is not a single dharma that does not emerge from the source of citta and emptiness of nature, like water coming forth from a source, or clouds coming forth from empty space. Because the Tathāgatas of the ten directions realize citta to become buddhas, the Buddha is simply citta; and all the ten thousand goods, ten thousand virtues, compassion, wisdom, vows, and practices without exception flow forth from this. Furthermore, to discuss the five teachings in terms of the Essay on the Golden Lion: First, although this lion is a dharma of causes and conditions, arising and ceasing from thought to thought, there is in truth no lion to be found. This is called the dharma of foolish persons, which is the Śrāvaka Teaching. Second, precisely these conditioned dharmas are each devoid of own-nature, being thoroughly nothing but empty. This is called the Initial Teaching of the Mahāyāna. Third, although it is thoroughly nothing but empty, it does not obstruct the illusory dharmas from remaining distinctly present; conditioned arising is illusory existence, and both characteristics are simultaneously maintained. This is called the Final Teaching of the Mahāyāna. Fourth, precisely these two characteristics of lion and gold mutually negate each other and both vanish; conceptual graspings do not persist, neither having any power; emptiness and existence are both extinguished; the path of words and speech is severed, and there is nowhere for the citta to lodge. This is called the Sudden Teaching of the Mahāyāna. Fifth, precisely this dharma in which feelings are exhausted and substance is exposed blends into a single whole; its great functions profusely arise, its arising inevitably being wholly the true; the ten thousand images are multifarious, intermingling without disorder; all is the one, identical in having no nature; the one is all, causes and effects distinctly apparent; power and function mutually subsume, folding up and unfolding with complete freedom. This is called the Consummate Teaching of the Ekayāna. This is called the Supreme Yāna. Next, Tiantai establishes the four teachings: First, the Tripiṭaka Teaching, which clarifies the principle of the four noble truths of arising and ceasing through causes and conditions; its primary teaching is the Hīnayāna, while incidentally converting bodhisattvas. Second, the Pervasive Teaching, which the three kinds of persons receive in common, clarifying the four true truths of unarisen causes and conditions that are empty as they are; it is primarily for bodhisattvas, and incidentally extends to the two vehicles; its teaching, principle, wisdom, elimination of defilements, practice, stages, cause, and effect are all empty, realized by the three kinds of persons in common. Both the Tripiṭaka and Pervasive teachings fail to recognize the permanently abiding true citta, and both take the cessation of the citta as the ultimate fruit. Third, the Distinct Teaching, which is a designation for what is not shared, clarifying the principle of the immeasurable four noble truths of nominal designations through causes and conditions; it concerns the conversion of bodhisattvas and is not shared with the two vehicles. As for its difference in teaching, it fully expounds Buddhadharmas numerous as the sands of the Ganges, distinctively for bodhisattvas; as for its difference in principle, the storehouse consciousness contains principles of conventional truth numerous as the sands of the Ganges, extending to its wisdom, elimination of defilements, practice, stages, cause, and effect, all of which are distinct from the phenomena of the other three teachings. Although it knows the principle that the one mind is inexhaustibly non-empty, it is not yet complete in the present, still awaiting sequential arising; it clings to the pedagogical path without interfusion, and establishes distinctions based on graduated stages. Fourth, the Consummate Teaching.