宗鏡錄 44.3.4

44.3.4

"Ānanda, when sounds cease and there is no echo, you say there is no hearing. If there were truly no hearing, the nature of hearing would already have perished, identical to withered wood. When the bell is struck once more, how do you know it? Knowing there is [sound] and knowing there is no [sound] naturally belongs to the sense-data of sound, which may be absent or present. How could that nature of hearing be present or absent for you? If hearing were truly absent, who would know that it is absent? Therefore, Ānanda, sound naturally arises and ceases within hearing; it is not that your hearing arises and ceases with the sound, causing your nature of hearing to be present or absent. You are still so inverted as to confuse sound with hearing; what wonder is it that, in your stupor, you take the permanent to be severed? Under no circumstances should you say that apart from movement and stillness, obstruction and opening, hearing has no nature. Consider a deeply sleeping person asleep on their pillow: while they are sleeping, someone in the house pounds cloth and husks rice. In their dream, the person hears the sound of pounding and husking, but takes it for something else, either as the beating of a drum or the striking of a bell; and right in the dream, they wonder why the bell sounds like stone or wood. Suddenly waking up, they immediately recognize the sound of the pestle, and tell their family: 'Just when I was dreaming, I confused this pounding sound and took it to be the sound of a drum.' Ānanda, did this person in their dream recall stillness, movement, opening, obstruction, penetration, or blockage? Though their bodily form was asleep, the nature of hearing was not dimmed. Even if your form were to perish and the light of your life to pass away, how could this nature perish for you?" The commentary on the Śūraṅgamasūtra states: "Striking the bell to distinguish the true from the false: it is by means of the nature of hearing that the true can be recognized, and by adducing the sense-data of sound that the false is distinguished. If hearing existed because of sound, this hearing could not be separate from sound. If hearing exists apart from sound, this is true hearing. Now, you merely grasp at the hearing that follows sound. This hearing is not separate from sound; it can only be sound, it cannot be hearing. The true nature of hearing is like water, which does not perish; the sense-data of sound are like the wind, which agitates the water to form waves, hence the characteristic of hearing appears. When the sense-data of sound do not arise, the characteristic of hearing is absent, yet the nature of hearing does not perish. Because the nature does not perish, if the sense-data of sound come, the characteristic of hearing appears once more. Just as water does not perish, and when the wind moves there is the characteristic of waves; and just as the true nature of form pervades the realms of the ten directions, manifesting according to the stimulus of the mind so that characteristics of form appear—this nature of hearing is also like this." Thus we know that by failing to recognize the inherently permanent nature of hearing, and instead following the arising and ceasing characteristics of hearing associated with the sense-data of sound, one consequently gives rise to joy upon hearing praise and conceives anger upon hearing disparagement. It is because one is deluded about original hearing that one drifts along with sound. Mañjuśrī said: "Sentient beings are deluded about original hearing; / following sound, they thus drift along. / Even if Ānanda has a powerful memory, / he cannot avoid falling into erroneous thoughts. / Is this not sinking along with the objects? / Turning the flow back, one attains the unfictitious." He also said: "Turn back your inverted organ of hearing, / turn hearing inward to hear the self-nature; / once the nature is perfected, it is the unsurpassed path: / complete penetration is truly like this." Nowadays, taking sound to be hearing, turning one's back on the mind to pursue objects—is this not an inverted organ of hearing? If one can reverse the flowing stream of the sense-data of sound and return to the unfictitiousness of original hearing, this is turning hearing inward to hear the self-nature, attaining the source and returning to the origin. Internally, the cataract-afflicted sense-faculties are eradicated; externally, the dust-realms of sense-objects vanish. Subject and object having dropped away, the path of original awakening is accomplished, silent and illuminating, completely penetrating; it is truly like this. Therefore the Buddha said to Ānanda: "Because all sentient beings, from beginningless time, have followed forms and sounds, drifting along with each thought, they have never awakened to the purity, wondrousness, and permanence of the nature. Not following what is permanent, they pursue arising and ceasing; because of this, life after life, they drift in defilement. If they abandon arising and ceasing and guard the true and permanent, the permanent light manifests before them, and the sense-faculties, sense-data, and consciousness-mind fall away at once. Conceptual characteristics become dust; conscious sentiments become grime. When both are far removed, your Dharma-eye will at once become pure and bright: how could you fail to accomplish unsurpassed awareness?" Therefore, if one realizes the nature of hearing, one immediately attains correct awakening. Thereupon mind and objects are both fused, and movement and stillness are both obliterated. As Avalokiteśvara said: "That Buddha taught me to enter samādhi through hearing, contemplation, and cultivation. Initially within hearing, I entered the flow and forgot the object. The object entered having become quiescent, the two characteristics of movement and stillness clearly did not arise. Gradually increasing in this way, hearing and what is heard were extinguished. Not abiding in the exhaustion of hearing, awareness and what is made aware of became empty. When the emptiness of awareness became completely round, emptiness and what is made empty were extinguished. Arising and ceasing having been extinguished, quiescent cessation manifested before me. Suddenly I transcended the worldly and the supramundane; the ten directions were completely luminous, and I obtained two extraordinary supremacies: First, above, I united with the original wondrously awakened mind of the Buddhas of the ten directions, having the same compassionate power as the Buddha-Tathāgatas. Second, below, I united with all sentient beings of the six destinies in the ten directions, having the same sorrowful yearning as all sentient beings." Therefore, when initially entering from the nature of hearing, one first eliminates the realm of the sense-data of sound, movement and stillness; next, one eliminates the mind of the subject and object of hearing. Mind and object having both been eliminated, one furthermore does not abide in the realm devoid of mind, nor in the wisdom of the subject and object of awareness; then awareness and wisdom are both empty, and this emptiness is also empty—only then is perfect awakening accomplished. Hence it is said: "When the emptiness of awareness became completely round, emptiness and what is made empty were extinguished." Only then does one exhaust the source of arising and ceasing, arriving at the ground of the original wondrously awakened mind of quiescent cessation. As the Awakening of Faith says: "All dharmas have distinctions entirely due to false thoughts; if one is free from false thoughts, there are no characteristics of distinction among objective realms." Thus we know that when false thoughts are emptied, sense-faculties and sense-objects pass away; when consciousness and conceptions dissolve, dust and defilement sink away; then the Dharma-eye at once becomes pure and bright, and the permanent light is clearly and suddenly revealed. Since the original nature of seeing and hearing is thus, what is manifested by all the sense-faculties is also like this. Hence the sūtra says: "Because the six sovereign kings are constantly pure." Furthermore, a verse in the Śūraṅgamasūtra says: "Once one sense-faculty returns to the source, / all six sense-faculties attain liberation. / Seeing and hearing are like illusory cataracts; / the three realms are like flowers in the sky. / When hearing is restored, the cataract-faculty is removed; / when dust dissolves, awareness is completely pure. / When purity is utmost, the light penetrates unobstructed, / silently illuminating, encompassing empty space. / Looking back upon the world, / it is just like things in a dream." It is only because of not having awakened before that, within defilement and purity, wherever there is the slightest seeing, hearing, grasping, or rejecting, all of it lies within the long night of ignorance and the dream of birth and death in the three realms. The moment one attains the seeing of nature, one is identical to one who has awakened: awakening oneself and awakening others, one is therefore named a Buddha. Furthermore, this nature of one's own mind pervades all places and can be entered anywhere, not solely through seeing and hearing.