宗鏡錄 65.19

65.19

Answer: The non-Buddhists of India mostly cling to the body having a spiritual self (ātman), which can cause the body to act and move. [They say:] "If there were no spiritual self, what would make the body move?" Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna refuted this, saying: "Citta is the characteristic of consciousness; it can naturally cause the body to move, without depending on a spirit. Just as the nature of fire can burn things without relying on a person." The Ghanavyūhasūtra says: "The ālayavijñāna constantly serves as the support for all defiled and pure dharmas; it is the sphere of the samādhi of pleasant abiding in the present dharma for all noble ones; it serves as the cause for all realms of humans, devas, and the rest, and for the buddha-lands; it constantly serves as the gotra for the various yānas. If one can fully awaken to it, one attains the Buddha path. All sentient beings possess merit, majestic power, and sovereignty, down to those born in dangerous and difficult places; the ālayavijñāna constantly abides within them, serving as their support. This is the realm of beginningless time of sentient beings, the karmic vāsanās, which can increase by themselves and can also increase the other seven vijñānas. Hence ordinary beings cling to it as what is done and as the inner self that can act. Virtuous ones, the mind in the body moves swiftly like the wind; the wind of karma blows the seeds everywhere into the sense faculties; the seven consciousnesses arise simultaneously like waves. What non-Buddhists conceptualize as primal nature (prakṛti), atoms (paramāṇu), the Lord (Īśvara), and so forth, are all the pure ālayavijñāna. Virtuous ones, through the power of past karma and with craving as condition, the ālayavijñāna accomplishes the numerous varieties of the world; confused people cling to it as an agent." The Laṅkāvatārasūtra says: "View all sentient beings as insentient corpses; because of false conceptualization, one sees coming and going. If one is free from false conceptualization, they are like those corpses, with no spirit entering inside them." Thus know that a person is also like this: there are only the four great elements, and no person enters inside them.