[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Indian literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in) › [Buddhist Literature](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha) › [Taishō Tripiṭaka (Chinese Buddhist canon)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho) › [宗鏡錄](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016) › [English (machine translation)](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt) › 45.22 # 宗鏡錄 45.22 English (machine translation) 45.22 - **Language:** English ### [45.22](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45.22) Answer: Unfolding the conditioned collection of the bodhisattva's own substance as the dharmadhātu, there are precisely four parts. Why is this so? Grasping the one real truth of one's own substance is rāga. Abandoning the saṃsāra of the two extremes is the cessation of dveṣa. Being deluded about the one real truth, because avidyā is not yet exhausted, there is still moha. Grasping the three parts equally is the equal part. These are the three fundamental poisons. Therefore the Qing Guanyin jing says: 'Purifying the roots of the three poisons, one accomplishes the Buddha path without doubt.' How much more so for ordinary persons bound by karma, afflicted by the disease of portion-and-segment saṃsāra? Yet people nowadays mostly do not examine themselves closely or broadly open the sacred scriptures. They are darkened in both teaching and contemplation, and entirely deficient in principle and practice. They merely prize following words and relying on superficial understanding, sweeping everything away at once. Wiping away traces, the traces are not obliterated; returning to emptiness, emptiness is not extinguished. Because they do not transcend dharmas as cognitive objects, everything is mere shadow-play. They fail utterly to recognise the king of citta and the caitasikas, seeds and actualisations, roots and auxiliaries, subtle sense-bases and objects, and the arising place of production and cessation. Mind-moment after mind-moment flows along; thought-moment after thought-moment actualises. They are like drunkards, fools, ignorant and oblivious. Since the lamp of wisdom is already dark and the water of samādhi is completely parched, I do not know by what gate they could ever attain purity. They merely learn lofty, fabricated phrases, displaying their names before the multitude of sages, while having no gate of right-mindfulness practice at all, their steps falling behind the multitude of heretics. Now I cause them universally to know the disease and recognise the medicine, so that they may take it and practice it, purify the roots of the three poisons, and see the nature of the one mind. Take, for instance, Aśvaghoṣa and Nāgārjuna: both were ancestral masters in India who transmitted the Buddha's citta-seal. Aśvaghoṣa composed the Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda-śāstra, extensively explaining the three subtle consciousnesses and six coarse characteristics of the ālayavijñāna and so forth, as well as the two gates of tathatā and production-and-cessation within the one mind. Nāgārjuna composed the Moheyan lun, citing one hundred Mahāyāna sūtras to corroborate and explain the eight consciousness kings of citta and the subtle meanings of nature and characteristics. Why do later students fail to succeed earlier sages? One might say their rope is too short to reach deep springs, their wings too weak to soar high. Furthermore, if one does not first discuss the manifestations of phenomenal phenomena, how can one discern the origin of their substantial nature? As in worldly matters, if one has not seen the ocean, how can one recognise its waves? If one has not seen the mountain, how can one be familiar with its soil? Now I intend to discern both the general and the particular, setting forth both principle and phenomena in full. If one does not penetrate phenomena, principle is not round; if one does not understand principle, how can phenomena stand? Therefore it is said: principle manifests in accordance with phenomena, and the dependent origination of the one and the many is boundless; phenomena are integrated by principle, and the thousands of differences interpenetrate without obstruction. Furthermore, the particular emerges from the general, and the general is completed through the particular. Without the particular, how could the general be completed? Without the general, how could it be called particular? Thus principle and phenomena, general and particular, are on a single plane without differentiation. It is only because people nowadays grasp solely at the general and remain stuck in principle that their views are not round: the Dharma-eye is about to brighten but does not brighten, and doubts are about to be severed but are not severed. This is all because principle and phenomena form obstructions, and the general and particular do not flow freely. Therefore the Four Universal Vows state: 'The Dharma gates are measureless, I vow to learn them; the Buddha path is supreme, I vow to accomplish it.' Why then waste the fleeting moments and abruptly violate one's original vow, clinging to ignorance, sitting in vain, and betraying the four obligations? Like foolish people who cannot distinguish beans from wheat, or like the eyes of cattle and sheep that cannot tell cardinal directions, even now, confronting objects, they are still not round and clear; when facing conditions at the end of life, how could they discriminate? One must directly penetrate phenomena and comprehend principle, thoroughly investigate fruit and exhaust causes, so that not a single dharma is unclarified and not a single dust-mote is unilluminated. Then seeing and hearing cannot deceive, and objective realms cannot bind. Therefore the Lotus Sūtra says: 'The foremost rare and difficult-to-understand dharma accomplished by the Buddhas can be fully fathomed only by a Buddha and a Buddha: the real mark of all dharmas, namely, all dharmas being such in characteristics, such in nature, such in substance, such in power, such in function, such in cause, such in condition, such in fruit, such in retribution, and such in ultimate equality from beginning to end.' Thus we know that the real mark of the one mind is entirely all dharmas. What is produced by all dharmas all comes from the perfuming of present good and evil, with the seeds contained in the eighth consciousness as cause, and giving rise to the fruits of defiled and pure differentiated retributions. If one does not dissect this with subtlety and resolve doubts through questions and answers, by what means could one reach the origin of the generality and particularity of the one mind, and penetrate the limit of the nature and characteristics of the eight consciousnesses? The ancients said: 'Lifting the head-rope aims at spreading the net; one cannot discard the net and keep the head-rope. Raising the collar aims at putting on the garment; one cannot throw away the garment and take the collar.' If one merely gathers without narrating, it is like a net without a head-rope; if one merely narrates without gathering, it is like a head-rope without a net. Thus we know that when principle and phenomena are both illuminated, only then does one penetrate the round intent; when teaching and contemplation are exercised together, only then does one reach the Ekayāna. Consider how an equal-enlightenment bodhisattva, about to bring the wondrous fruit to perfection, enters instead the gate of the net of illusion, training backwards in the affairs of ordinary persons, practicing worldly samādhis, and mastering technical skills and supernormal powers. What is taken as source here first clarifies the great intent; one must first establish and then demolish, so as to wash away emotional dust. Yet demolishing and establishing are simultaneous, and there is nothing demolished. This is unlike the provisional teachings that rigidly cling to the gate of existence among doctrinal marks, and how could it compare to the Hīnayāna, which only realizes the principle of emptiness by analyzing dharmas? Here we use the particular to complete the general, and bring forward the biased to manifest the round. The particular completing the general, they are on a single plane without differentiation; the biased manifesting the round, the ten thousand dharmas share a single intent. Opening and closing freely, hidden and manifest without fixed location. If one clings to it, it becomes a wart on the ten thousand existences; if one fixes upon it, it serves as the root-stalk of the four māras. As for these hundred dharmas of the clarifying gate, Mahāyāna bodhisattvas only fully understand them on the first bhūmi; up to the Buddhas of the ten directions, both their fundamental and subsequent wisdoms realise them and take them as objects. If one does not realise the nature of vijñaptimātra, one cannot accomplish fundamental wisdom, and there will be no time of accomplishing Buddhahood. If one does not understand the characteristics of vijñaptimātra, the hundred dharmas of the clarifying gate, one cannot accomplish subsequent wisdom, and one lacks the practices for transforming others. These hundred dharmas of vijñaptimātra are indeed the fundamental nature and characteristics of all conditioned and unconditioned, conventional and ultimate dharmas. Therefore the sūtra says: 'If one does not realise tathatā, how can one understand all active conditioned states?' If one does not realise the nature of the tathatā of vijñaptimātra, how can one understand the practicing characteristics of the hundred dharmas of vijñaptimātra? Therefore it is said: fundamental wisdom realises the nature of the hundred dharmas, and subsequent wisdom takes the characteristics of the hundred dharmas as objects. The Mahāyāna-śraddhotpāda-śāstra states: 'The arousal of citta upon the completion of faith is briefly explained as threefold: first, arousing the straightforward citta, because of rightly contemplating the dharma of tathatā in accordance with principle; second, arousing the profound citta, because of delighting in gathering all good practices; third, arousing the great compassionate citta, because of wishing to pull out the suffering of all sentient beings.' - [Previous: 45.21](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45.21) - [Next: 45.23](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45.23) - [Up: 45](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45) ## Linked texts (1) - [宗鏡錄](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016.45.22) — Classical Chinese --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45.22](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.taisho.2016~en-mt.45.22) · Pramāṇa