宗鏡錄 47.13

47.13

Answer: This substance cannot be expressed in words; it is subtle, wondrous, and most difficult to know. It pervades the dharmadhātu while being a mind of no abiding; it sustains everything without manifesting its characteristics. It is like a bird flying in the sky: though it comes, goes, and soars, its traces cannot be sought. It is like the pupil inside the eye: while naturally illuminating the myriad phenomena, the eye never sees itself. It is like the moon containing a single color, everywhere reflecting the shapes of ten thousand forms; it is equal to the sun shining a thousand rays, universally illuminating all beneath the four heavens. It resembles the wish-fulfilling maṇi jewel that rains down treasures without thought, broadly delivering the multitude of living beings; it is like a lodestone that attracts and moves [iron] without sensation, turning through the six destinies. As a verse in the Ghanavyūhasūtra says: / “The storehouse consciousness sustains the world, / Just as a string threads through pearls, / And as a chariot has wheels / Moving in accordance with the karmic winds. / As the potter works the wheel and stick, / Shaping vessels according to their use, / So the storehouse consciousness and the various elements / Cooperate in power so that nothing is not accomplished. / The internal and external worlds / Are universally ordered and completely pervaded. / Just as the constellations of stars / Are arrayed across empty space, / Sustained by the power of the wind, / Ever revolving without cessation; / Just as the tracks of a bird in the sky / Cannot be seen when sought, / Yet the bird does not leave the sky, / Soaring up and down, advancing and retreating; / So too is the storehouse consciousness: / It does not leave one’s own body or others’ bodies. / As the ocean gives rise to billows and waves, / As empty space contains ten thousand forms, / So too is the storehouse consciousness: / Storing all the vāsanās within. / Just like the moon reflected in water, / And just like the lotus flowers, / Inseparable from the water, / Yet never soiled by the water; / So too is the storehouse consciousness: / No vāsanā can defile it. / As an eye has a pupil, / Yet the eye never sees itself, / So the storehouse consciousness abides in the body, / Gathering and storing all the seeds, / Everywhere sustaining life-force, heat, and consciousness, / Like a cloud covering the world; / Its karmic functions never cease, / Yet sentient beings cannot see it.”

It also says: “Virtuous Ones! All colors and forms are the ālayavijñāna in association with form-vāsanās, transforming into the semblance of their characteristics; they do not have a separate substance, as falsely conceptualized by the foolish. Virtuous Ones! All sentient beings, whether sitting or lying down, whether walking or standing, whether dazed, drunk, asleep, or even running madly—none of them are anything other than the ālayavijñāna.” And so on, until: “Just as the magnetic power of a lodestone causes iron to move, though having no mind, it appears to have a mind; the ālayavijñāna is also like this: sustained by the phenomena of birth and death, coming and going in the various destinies, it is not a self, yet resembles a self. Just as there is an object in the water that, though having no thought or awareness, moves without stopping following the water; the ālayavijñāna is also like this: though free from discrimination, it moves in dependence on the body.” And so on, until: “If someone can correctly observe this and know that all worlds are their own mind, these discriminative views will thereupon be transformed and extinguished.”

Another verse says: / “That which can hold the causes of the world / Is what is called the ālaya. / The eighth, the puruṣa-consciousness, / Moves and actuates all things. / As a wheel turns to form many jars, / As oil is everywhere within sesame seeds, / As salt contains the salty flavor, / And just as the nature of impermanence / Is omnipresent throughout all forms.”