宗鏡錄 77.11

77.11

Answer: If you wish to know the true origin of the bodies and lands of sentient beings, nothing precedes my own mind; there is no other dharma whatsoever. This means that mental dharmas are instantaneous, continuing in kind, flowing onward from the beginningless realm of time, neither interrupted nor permanent, relying upon conditions and objects, neither being material qi nor an endowment [of Heaven], but consciousness-only and mind-only. The Zhaolun chao (Commentary on the Treatises of Sengzhao) states: "Laozi said: 'The nameless is the beginning of Heaven and Earth; the named is the mother of the myriad things.' According to the Buddhist intention, however, it is the nature of the tathāgatagarbha that transforms into the storehouse consciousness (ālayavijñāna), and from the storehouse consciousness transform all the seeds of the physical body and the receptacle world. Tracing the origin of their transformation, it is the nature of the tathāgatagarbha that is the beginning of things. Non-arising and beginninglessness are the nature of things. Arising and beginning cannot move this nature, which is precisely dharmatā." The Jun sheng lun (Treatise on the Equalization of the Sages) by Shen Yue of the Southern Qi states: 'Thus, since this Heaven and Earth have existed, it is still just a single thought-moment.'"