宗鏡錄 64.9

64.9

Answer: From the perspective of the ultimate truth, it does not exist; in accordance with the conventional, it exists. When a single thought-moment of mind arises, it still contains the discriminations of the ten time-periods and the four operations; one must not adopt an annihilationist view like that of a turtle's fur or a rabbit's horns. Although past dharmas do not abide from thought-moment to thought-moment, they have all perfumed the eighth consciousness, where past seeds exist. Those who know past events do so because the seeds perfumed in the past are stored within the svasaṃvittibhāga of the present ālayavijñāna. However, during the past time, although there is no substance, by merely taking the seeds within consciousness as the substantive cause, one transforms an image and cognizes it, thereby knowing past events. This is cognition by way of an object with substantive basis (dravyālambana). Alternatively, it is said that what is cognizable is the reflected image upon the mind: that is, on the darśanabhāga of the sixth manovijñāna, a reflected image of the past is transformed and arisen, and thus known. This is a solitary reflected image (kevalapratibimba), meaning that the past has no substance and no substantive cause. Furthermore, if a past dharma has not fallen away, it is not called past; if it has already fallen away, there is no dharma to be known. If it is only that having once passed through the mind, its seed-image appears before one, and therefore one is said to recollect and know it, then one merely perceives one's own mind and does not perceive that dharma. As the Candrapradīpasamādhisūtra states: 'The Buddha said: How does a bodhisattva-mahāsattva attain the treasury of cognition of the past, future, and present? Youth, this bodhisattva knows the mental activities of all sentient beings as they truly are; in accordance with the arising of the sequence of his own mental activities, he contemplates the dharmas of his own mind, and through the skillful means of cultivation free from disordered thought, just as with his own mental activities, he infers the same for others. In accordance with whatever forms he sees and sounds he hears, whether liked or not liked, his mind knows them all as they truly are. Youth, this is called the bodhisattva's attainment of the treasury of cognition of the past, future, and present.'