宗鏡錄 64.19

64.19

Answer: Just as the one great earth produces various kinds of sprouts, in like manner the mind of the eight consciousnesses manifests various phenomena. What is observed is the nimittabhāga of the ālayavijñāna; what can see is the darśanabhāga of the eye consciousness. Although subject and object are divided, neither departs from consciousness; both are direct perception (pratyakṣa) without entangling nominal designations, and are thus neither existent nor empty, neither one nor two. If one falls into inferential cognition (anumāna) and grasps them as external dusts, feelings of oneness and duality arise, and mental thoughts of inside and outside are generated. A verse from the Ghanavyūhasūtra says: / "Just as the earth is without conceptual discrimination, / Yet the myriad things depend on it to arise, / The ālayavijñāna is also like this, / The locus of reliance for the myriad objects. / Just as a person uses his own hand / To stroke his own body, / And as an elephant with its trunk / Takes water to wash and bathe itself, / Or again as infants / Put their fingers in their mouths, / In this way, within one's own mind, / A manifest object is in turn taken as an object by oneself. / These objects of the mind / Pervade the three realms of existence. / Those who have long cultivated contemplative practice / Are able to thoroughly penetrate that / The various internal and external worlds / Are all only manifestations of mind." / A verse in the Avataṃsakasūtra says: / "Just as in the deep great ocean / Precious jewels cannot be exhausted, / And within it are fully manifested / The shapes and reflections of sentient beings; / In the ocean of profound causes and conditions, / Merits are completely inexhaustible, / And within the pure dharmakāya / There is no reflection that does not appear." / The Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra says: "Furthermore, the practitioner contemplates internally in mind, accords with the correct Dharma, and observes the practice of phenomena, up to: 'How is it that the foolish, deluded ordinary beings of the world, having seen forms with their eyes, either generate greed, generate anger, or generate delusion? When those ordinary beings see a friend or see a woman, greed arises in their minds; if they see something different, then anger arises. Seeing others endowed [with desirable traits], they are veiled by greed and anger; because with their eyes they do not see forms as they truly are, delusion obscures their minds. Foolish ordinary beings have only conceptual discrimination: when seeing forms with the eyes, they are veiled by greed, anger, or delusion. People deceived by attachment discriminate in their own minds: "This is I; this is mine," and are tainted and attached like this. For example, it is like a dog gnawing on a bone stripped of meat; its saliva mixes with it, and it hopes to obtain its marrow. In this way, blood flows from between the greedy dog's teeth; having obtained its taste, it thinks it is the juice of the bone, not knowing that its own blood has such a taste. Because it craves the taste, without realizing it, it gradually eats its own tongue, and still craves that taste; because it is veiled by greed, it thinks it is the taste of the bone juice. Foolish ordinary beings are also like this: with false discrimination, eye consciousness sees forms, and they crave, attach, rejoice in, and deliberate upon them. Placing the dry bone of form into the mouth of the eye, the sense object is like the teeth, gnawing it in this way; the defiled mind is like the saliva, and the blood of craving flows out. Craving the taste of the blood, they consider the form beautiful and take pleasure in form, just like that dog. The foolish ordinary person whose eye consciousness sees form like a bone falsely discriminates like a dog gnawing a bone. Contemplating in this way, the eyes seeing forms is just like a dry bone. In this way all foolish ordinary beings are deceived and deluded by false discrimination.'" It also says: "King Yama spoke verses rebuking negligent sinners, saying: / 'If one belongs to wrong views, / That person is not clever or wise. / All practices leading to hell / Are deceived by the enemy that is the mind. / The mind is the foremost enemy; / This enemy is the most vicious. / This enemy can bind a person / And send them to Yama's domain.' / Therefore we know that all places of suffering are fundamentally trapped by craving and desire. If a greedy thought arises in a flash, one is incinerated by the fire of the five desires; as soon as a conceptual thought emerges, one is bound by the wheel of the three realms. For example, when Śakra defeated the asuras in battle, he built the Hall of Victory. The seven-jeweled multistoried pavilion was adorned and wondrous: the beams, pillars, and brackets each left room for a single thread, not touching each other yet able to support one another. The marvelous power of heavenly merit could be like this. Maudgalyāyana flew there, and Śakra led Maudgalyāyana to view the hall. The celestial maidens were all ashamed before Maudgalyāyana and all hid, not coming out. Maudgalyāyana thought that Śakra was attached to pleasure and did not cultivate the root of the path; he then miraculously manifested fire, burning down the Hall of Victory so that it collapsed in a blazing inferno. He then extensively preached impermanence for Śakra. Śakra rejoiced, and later the hall stood solemnly as before, without the color of ashes or smoke." The explanation says: "Because Śakra relied on his heavenly merit and was attached to conditioned phenomena, Maudgalyāyana displayed an expedient door to show the state of impermanence."