宗鏡錄 73.31

73.31

Answer: Initially, because of avidyā and non-comprehension, karma is initiated; subsequently, because of emotional affection and greedy craving, rebirth is moistened. Therefore it is said: 'From delusion arises affection, and thereupon my illness arises.' Because of delusion and affection, thoughts continue moment to moment. One should know that a thought is itself birth-and-death. The sūtra says: 'Arousing one good thought, one receives a human or heavenly body; arousing one evil thought, one receives a body in the three wretched realms.' Therefore, one knows that day and night, moment by moment, bodies of future birth-and-death are created; how could there be an end to it? The preface to the Ānāpānasmṛtisūtra says: 'Within the snap of a finger, citta transforms nine hundred and sixty times; in a day and a night, there are one billion three hundred million thoughts; in each thought there is a body, yet citta itself does not know it, like the seeds of the great elements.' The Bodhisattva-garbhasthasūtra says: 'In the snap of a finger, there are three billion two hundred million thoughts; every thought forms a bodily form, and every form has consciousness. The awe-inspiring spiritual power of the Buddha enters into those subtle consciousnesses, causing them all to attain deliverance.' This consciousness is what is taught and transformed; it is not non-conscious.