宗鏡錄 37.21

37.21

Answer: Its nature spans the boundaries of beginning and end; its substance is not the conditions of arising and ceasing. Its substance pervades delusion and awakening; its nature is not the affairs of liberation and perplexity. It is also said: The source of citta is originally pure, unconditioned, and beyond reckoning; it is neither one nor two, without color and without form, neither partial nor perfect. Though there is awareness and cognition, there is also no awareness or cognition. Examining citta through the four movements of thought—whether a thought has arisen or not—it is ultimately unfindable. How then could there be contemplation by stages or not by stages, partial or perfect? It is like empty space, equal and without differentiation. This nature of citta is ultimately without mind. When there are causes and conditions, it can also illuminate the mind. Since there is discourse on mind, there is also the meaning of provisional and correct contemplation. Just as in empty space there are also the yin and yang [seasons] and timely rains, the mind is also like this: though free of partial and perfect, gradual and sudden are also spoken of. If one contemplates that the mind possesses the naturally acquired three truths, the naturally acquired three contemplations, and all dharmas without before or after and without sequence, then in a single thought-moment the dharmas of the ten dharmadhātus are fully present. If one contemplates that the mind is neither empty nor existent, then all dharmas born from the mind are also neither empty nor existent. All such dharmas are within the one mind; you should know that contemplating this source of citta is equal to the Tathāgata. If one performs such a perfect contemplation, whether walking, standing, sitting, or lying down, a stūpa should be erected for that person, and they generate the mind of the Tathāgata. Such contemplation of the mind is called contemplating the mind of the Buddha. The Fuxing ji says: 'Mind-creation is precisely mind-possession.' Thus it cites the text on mind-creation to prove mind-possession. A gāthā in the Avataṃsaka-sūtra says: / 'The mind is like a skilled painter, / creating the various five skandhas; / in all the worlds, / there is no dharma that it does not create. / As is the mind, so also is the Buddha; / as is the Buddha, so are sentient beings. / The mind, the Buddha, and sentient beings— / these three have no differentiation. / If someone wishes to know / all the Buddhas of the three periods of time, / they should contemplate in this way: / the mind creates all the Tathāgatas.' / If one does not understand this text, how can one resolve the verse's 'mind creates all' and 'the three have no differentiation'? That the mind creates does not exceed two meanings: first, in terms of principle, creating is precisely possessing; second, in terms of phenomena, it does not exceed the three periods of time. The three periods of time again have three aspects: first, the past creates the present, and the past and present create the future; as from beginningless time, as well as the present, up to the end of the future, all karmas do not go beyond the ten realms, the hundred realms, the thousand thusnesses, and the three thousand worlds. Second, the present creates the present; that is, what is felt by common karma in the present. The mind transforms according to the object, and this is called 'creating'. Because the mind exists, all exists; because the mind is empty, all is empty. It is like a single official in the world: what is seen varies—it is feared, it is loved, it is close, or it is hostile. Third, what is created by the transformations of the holy beings also causes the transformed minds of sentient beings to perceive it. All of these depend on possession in principle before there can be phenomenal functions. Now, if one wishes to cultivate contemplation, one merely contemplates possession in principle: both refuting and establishing together, all are the dharmadhātu, naturally encompassing that which is manifested by the provisional and the real.