宗鏡錄 57.29

57.29

Answer: It is simply because the nature of consciousness is profound and obscure, difficult to fathom from beginning to end; only a Buddha can fully comprehend it, while those of lower stages cannot know it. Taking formlessness and tracklessness as the root of the myriad existences, uniquely deep and wondrous, it serves as the source of all sages. As the Sūtra of the Bodhisattva Dwelling in the Womb, in the chapter "Investigating Consciousness in the Five Destinies," states:
'At that time, the World-Honoured One wished to demonstrate the destinies to which consciousness tends: worldly consciousness, supramundane consciousness, conditioned consciousness, unconditioned consciousness, defiled consciousness, undefiled consciousness, flower-consciousness, fruit-consciousness, retributive consciousness, non-retributive consciousness, deva consciousness, nāga consciousness, ghost, spirit, asura, garuḍa, kiṃnara, mahoraga, human, and non-human consciousness, extending upward to the consciousness of the twenty-eight heavens and downward to the consciousness of the Avīci Hell without salvation. At that time, the World-Honoured One, right from within the womb, manifested interlaced skeletons filling the trichiliocosm. The Buddha said to Ajita, "Can you distinguish the consciousness of these skeletons?" He replied, "I cannot distinguish it. Why is that? Because I have not attained complete penetration and my power of practice has not reached it." The Buddha said to the Bodhisattva Maitreya, "In this heaven of yours, have you not attained supernormal powers?" Maitreya said to the Buddha, "There are those who have accomplished them, and those who have not accomplished them." The Buddha said to Maitreya, "Observe these interlaced skeletons, and enable all the assembly to know where their consciousness has gone, distinguishing and settling it so they have no doubts or hesitations." At that time, Bodhisattva Maitreya rose from his seat, held a diamond divine staff of seven jewels in his hand, stirred the interlaced skeletons, and listening to the sound of those bones, immediately said to the Buddha, "When this person's life ended, he had abundant fetters of anger; his consciousness has fallen among nāgas." Next he stirred the bones again: "In this person's previous life, he was fully equipped with the ten good tracks of practice; he has attained birth in the heavens." Next he stirred the bones again: "In this person's previous life, he broke the precepts and violated monastic discipline; he has been born in hell." In this manner he stirred the bones—defiled and undefiled, conditioned and unconditioned, from the twenty-eight heavens down to the hell without salvation—knowing where the consciousness tended, good and evil karmic retributions, and the retributions of white and black actions. There was one complete body of relics without any deficiency. At that time, Maitreya stirred it with his staff, searching for this consciousness, but could not know its place at all. Stirring it three times in this way, he stepped forward and said to the Buddha, "This person's consciousness cannot be known at all. Could it be a Tathāgata who entered nirvāṇa?" The Buddha said to Maitreya, "You will succeed to the position of a Buddha; in a future age, you will become a Buddha and achieve the unexcelled path. Why do you stir the relics and yet not know the place of the consciousness?" Maitreya said to the Buddha, "The Buddha is inconceivable and immeasurable, beyond the realm that our kind can calculate. Now I have doubts; I only wish that the World-Honoured One would explain it. I am able to know all the consciousnesses of the five destinies, where their good and evil tend; I dare not have any doubt. Yet regarding the Tathāgata, now these relics are without any deficiency; please speak of this consciousness so that we may know it." The Buddha said to Maitreya, "The relics of past, future, and present Buddhas are widely dispersed; it is not a realm that can be distinguished by your kind. Why is that? These relics are my relics. How could you investigate and fathom the consciousness of a Tathāgata? Now I shall distinguish for you: the Tathāgata's superior, middling, and inferior consciousnesses up to sarvajñatā are each different. Bodhisattvas of the First Abode have not yet established faculties, virtues, and powers, though they have attained supernormal powers. Bodhisattvas of the Second Abode, observing with the divine eye, know where consciousnesses tend, whether stages are retrogressing or non-retrogressing, and also observe those in the desire realm, form realm, and formless realm; or again, they observe those born in Buddha-lands in the eastern direction as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, making offerings to the Buddhas and upholding the precepts without hindrance, and also know the number of kalpas until their prediction, whether one kalpa, two kalpas, or up to hundreds of thousands of koṭis of kalpas. Or there are bodhisattvas who, at the stage of the Third Abode, observe relics and know where the consciousness tends in nirvāṇa with remainder and nirvāṇa without remainder, yet they do not see the practices or the destinations of consciousness of the Fourth Abode. Bodhisattvas of the Fourth Abode see the dharmas of consciousness of the First, Second, and Third Abodes, yet they do not see where the consciousness-dharmas of the relics of the Fifth Abode tend; and so on, until only a Buddha knows the thoughts of a Buddha's consciousness.' Furthermore, a verse states: / 'Consciousness is a formless dharma, / taking the five great elements as its home. / Distinguishing good and evil conduct, / its departures and arrivals distinguish the true from the false. / Consciousness indicates the place of good paths, / permanently arriving at the peaceful and secure path. / Consciousness is the sixth king, / the remaining great elements are completely inferior to it.'