宗鏡錄 37.19

37.19

Answer: It is simply because the vision and knowledge of the Buddha are contained within the minds of sentient beings. Although they are manifested, those who are deluded do not know it, because they are covered by adventitious defilements and obstructed by false views. Though they exist, it is as if they were absent, like a worldly treasure trove covered by objects so that no one knows of it. Therefore, one must point precisely to the place of the treasure to cause them to see it in person and thereupon obtain its treasure, bringing inexhaustible benefit and relief. This is also like that. Relying on these gates of skillful means, one comes to see the mind-treasure, and then, stimulated and developed by the conditional and the uncovering [causes], it personally appears before one: the treasury of wisdom flourishes and the wealth of the Dharma is fully possessed. With such supreme benefit, the traces of the teachings are not in vain. As the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra says: 'For example, although the great sea is uniformly salty, within it there is also supreme, wondrous water whose flavor is like milk. It is also like the Snow Mountains: although they are endowed with various virtues and produce many medicines, there are also poisonous grasses. The bodies of sentient beings are also like this: although they have the seeds of the four great venomous serpents, within them there is also the wondrous medicine, Great King. What is called Buddha-nature is not an artificial construct; it is merely covered by the adventitious defilements of kleśa. If kṣatriyas, brāhmaṇas, vaiśyas, or śūdras can sever and eliminate them, they will see the Buddha-nature and attain the unexcelled path.' Therefore, the ancient virtuous ones said: 'The opening of the source of the nature of things is truly because the nature of sentient beings contains the ocean of wisdom, and their consciousness penetrates true emptiness. It is only that the bright jewel is concealed within their clothes, and the secret treasury is buried in the room; one must rely on pointing it out to make them awaken and enter, and one must depend on the wisdom of contemplation to accord with the unarisen.' Furthermore, to expand its meaningful functions, one must clarify the horizontal and vertical Dharma-doors. The vertical is solely the one mind; the horizontal pervades everything. The mind is neither horizontal nor vertical; horizontal and vertical are the mind. Concealment and manifestation are simultaneous; contraction and expansion are unhindered. Thought-moment by thought-moment they are mutually identical; dharma by dharma they interfuse. Applying the vertical to the horizontal, there is nothing horizontal that is not vertical—each and every dharma reaches the source of the mind. Applying the horizontal to the vertical, there is nothing vertical that is not horizontal—it possesses all phrases, and each and every phrase is broad and equal to the dharmadhātu. Therefore, the Ocean of Meanings says: 'The substance has no difference; whenever it is raised, its full sharpness appears. The principle does not take different paths; whenever it is spoken of, it is instantly revealed.' This is truly because the characteristics of the two extremes are exhausted, and distinct substances interfuse; it contracts and expands according to wisdom, and bends and curves in response to capacities. Therefore, when words arise, they instantly arise—who could say the path does not go through? When the many are raised, they are instantly the many—who could say the Dharma does not exist? Hence we know that setting up teachings is always done in response to capacities; since capacities and suitabilities differ, the teachings are divided into many kinds. For instance, in contemplating the single dharma of form, the five teachings have different entries into realization: First, the Small Vehicle sees it as real form and does not speak of emptiness of nature. The Initial Teaching sees this dharma of form as produced from conditions and necessarily devoid of self-nature, being empty and having nothing at all, like waves returning to water. The Final Teaching sees that form and emptiness are unobstructed, because true emptiness does not preserve its own self-nature and follows conditions to become form, which is illusory form, and thereupon depends upon emptiness to be established; this form that depends upon emptiness has false characteristics devoid of substance, its own nature always exhausted while emptiness appears. Therefore, form is emptiness and is always annihilated; emptiness is form and always preserved. It must be that form which exhausts itself that is empty form; the emptiness that establishes form is true emptiness. Raising the substance, they mutually interfuse without obstruction, like water entering the waves. The Sudden Teaching holds that a single dharma of form is entirely subsumed under the true principle; therefore, this form is of a single flavor with the true principle, etc., and there is no other dharma that can be explicitly explained—both water and waves are extinguished. The Perfect Teaching holds that as soon as it arises, it completely subsumes everything; the one and the many mutually contain each other, simultaneously established as a single lump of perfect brightness: wherever raised, it is form; wherever raised, it is emptiness. Its meaning and flavor are self-sovereign, adopted and applied according to wisdom. Why? Because whenever one door is raised, there is none that is not manifested. The ancient virtuous ones said: 'All are rooted in the one mind and string together all dharmas.' Now, the one mind is the total of the ten thousand dharmas: divided, it becomes morality, concentration, and wisdom; unfolded, it becomes the six pāramitās; dispersed, it becomes the ten thousand practices. The ten thousand practices have never not been the one mind; the one mind has never contradicted the ten thousand practices. Thus, the one mind is that which generates the ten thousand dharmas, yet does not belong to the ten thousand dharmas. One who attains it is at ease with regard to dharmas; one who sees it is unhindered with regard to the teachings. Originally it is not a dharma, so it cannot be explained by dharmas; originally it is not a teaching, so it cannot be transmitted by teachings. How could it be sought by tracks and traces? Thus we know that if one only investigates and refines a single dharma, inner illumination becomes clear and distinct, naturally pliable and entering into the spirit; according with the nature of the dharmadhātu, without mind one accords with the Way, treading the gate of the single realm. Therefore, the Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: 'Because the human mind is mostly scattered, like a madman, like a thief, like a drunkard, the one mind of reverent mindfulness is the initial gate to all virtues. Gathering the mind, one attains dhyāna, and then attains real wisdom; attaining real wisdom, one then attains liberation; attaining liberation, one then attains the end of suffering. Matters such as these are all attained from the one mind.' The Private Notes on the Huayan says: 'The dedicating [of roots of virtue] without bondage and without attachment is simply because one realizes that all are suchness; therefore there is no bondage or attachment. One knows that all have neither bondage nor release. Since one dharma is like this, all dharmas are likewise so. Therefore, all dharmas are the one dharma, and the one dharma is all dharmas. If all dharmas are devoid of nature, this is the assembly of the divided bodies of the Buddha, the appearance of the jewel stupa, and Mount Sumeru entering a mustard seed.' Reaching such thorough penetration, when one is understood, a thousand follow. Then one knows that the Buddha is born toward the nonexistent, and the Dharma is established within ultimate emptiness. Because there is no arising and no nature, turning and revolving depend on the mind, so that gathering and dispersing are simultaneous, and the great and the small enter into one another. Therefore, the arrayed principles, the reflected images of the reward and transformation bodies, and even the measureless virtuous deeds and vast spiritual powers, simultaneously appear within the mirror of the source. Now, consider classes such as dragons and mirage-monsters: though their bodies are entirely the karmic fruits of birth and death, they still display inconceivable power and function. How much more so could one who awakens to the fundamental mind and possesses knowledge of reality not display vast spiritual functions? As the Avataṃsakasūtra says: 'O son of the Buddha, just as Rāhu, king of the asuras, whose original body is seven hundred yojanas tall, transforms his shape to sixteen-eight thousand yojanas tall, so that when he raises half his body out of the great ocean, it is exactly level with Mount Sumeru. O son of the Buddha, although that king of the asuras transforms his body to sixteen-eight thousand yojanas tall, he does not destroy the characteristics of his original body: all his aggregates, realms, and sense fields remain as they originally were; his mind is not confused; he does not think of the transformed body as someone else, nor does he think of his original body as not himself. His originally born body constantly receives various pleasures, while his transformed body constantly manifests the power and majesty of various self-sovereign spiritual transformations. O son of the Buddha, if the king of the asuras, who has rāga, dveṣa, and moha, and is fully endowed with arrogance, can still transform and manifest his body like this, how much more so can a bodhisattva-mahāsattva who can deeply understand that mental dharmas are like illusions, that all worldly realms are entirely like dreams, that the appearances of all Buddhas in the world are like reflected images, that all worlds are like magical creations, and that spoken sounds and voices are all like echoes; who sees the real Dharma and takes the real Dharma as their body; who knows that the original nature of all dharmas is pure; who thoroughly knows that body and mind have no real substance; whose body universally abides in measureless realms; who, with the vast radiance of the Buddha's wisdom, purely cultivates all practices of bodhi! Even as a magician performs various magical arts anywhere, he does not destroy the original ground on account of the illusory ground, nor does he destroy the original sun on account of the illusory sun. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is also like this: where there is no land, he manifests lands; where there is a land, he manifests no land; where there are sentient beings, he manifests no sentient beings; where there are no sentient beings, he manifests sentient beings; where there is no form, he manifests form; where there is form, he manifests no form. The first does not confuse the later, and the later does not confuse the first. The bodhisattva thoroughly knows that all worldly dharmas are also like this, identical to illusions and transformations. Because he knows that dharmas are illusions, he knows that wisdom is an illusion; because he knows that wisdom is an illusion, he knows that karma is an illusion. Having known that wisdom is an illusion and karma is an illusion, he generates illusory wisdom and contemplates all karma. Just as a worldly magician does not manifest his illusion outside of the place, nor is his place outside of the illusion, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is also like this: he does not enter the world outside of empty space, nor does he enter empty space outside of the world. Why? Because empty space and the world are without distinction. Abiding in the world, he also abides in empty space. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva is able to see and cultivate the various distinct, wondrous adornments and karmas of all worldly realms within empty space. In a single thought-moment, he is able to completely understand the formation and destruction of countless worlds, and he also knows the sequential order of kalpas; he can manifest countless kalpas in a single thought-moment, yet he does not cause that single thought-moment to expand. The bodhisattva-mahāsattva attains the illusory wisdom of inconceivable liberation, arrives at the other shore, abides at the limit of illusion, enters the tally of worldly illusions, and contemplates all dharmas as completely like illusions. Not going against the illusory world, exhausting illusory wisdom, he thoroughly knows that the three periods of time are no different from illusions, and definitively penetrates the boundlessness of the mind. Just as the tathāgatas abide in wisdom that is like an illusion with an equal mind, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is also like this: he knows that all worldly realms are entirely like illusions, has no attachment anywhere, and has no sense of mineness. Just as that magician performs various magical feats, and although he does not abide together with those magical feats, he is not deluded by the magical feats either, the bodhisattva-mahāsattva is also like this: he knows all dharmas, arrives at the other shore, his mind does not conceive that he can enter into dharmas, nor is he confused about dharmas.'