宗鏡錄 77.15

77.15

Answer: Herein there is truly no maker; they arise naturally from the nature of the dharmadhātu. The Vajrasamādhisūtra says: 'Wholesome and unwholesome phenomena arise transformatively from citta.' This may be called the gate of dhāraṇī and the capital of the ten thousand phenomena. Where light has not yet manifested, there is not even a name. When a thought is about to arise, its shadow seems to divide. First, due to forced awareness, understanding gradually arises. As soon as the darśanabhāga and the nimittabhāga separate, the mind and its objects suddenly appear. The Śūraṅgamasūtra says: 'It is entirely awareness; the nature of understanding is luminous and distinct. Due to understanding, characteristics manifest, arising from false views. Mountains, rivers, the great earth, and all conditioned characteristics continuously change in succession. Because of this falsity, [the cycle] ends only to begin again.'

Explanation: This is entirely because, initially due to confusion regarding the one dharmadhātu, thoughts arise unwittingly. The arising of thought is the characteristic of movement. The characteristic of movement is the primary karmic consciousness (karmavijñāna). Before subject and object are divided, it is the fault of luminous awareness. From this, it transforms into the perceiving subject, flowing into the characteristic of understanding; this is the luminous, knowing nature, which is the secondary darśanabhāga, the transforming consciousness (pravṛttivijñāna). Afterwards, due to the darśanabhāga, the nimittabhāga is generated; that is, 'due to understanding, characteristics manifest,' which is the tertiary nimittabhāga, the manifesting consciousness (khyātivijñāna). As soon as subject and object are divided, all becomes falsity. Why? The darśanabhāga arises from cataracts in the eye, and the nimittabhāga manifests like an illusory form. Thereupon, secretly confronting sense faculties and sense objects, emotional attachment is firmly generated. From this, the true nature is separated, and the limpid and perfect [nature] is divided. Internally, it appropriates awareness and sensation to form a conscious body. Externally, departing from attachment, thought becomes still, forming insentient earth. Consequently, shapes and shadows in the mirror perish only to arise again, and mountains and rivers within a dream end only to begin anew.

However, the original oceanic nature does not arise from subject and object; it is limpid, perfectly luminous, illuminating yet ever quiescent. It is merely because sentient beings go against their nature without understanding, turning their backs on the original perfect luminosity and clinging to an object of illumination, which constitutes false views. Due to illumination, the sphere of objects to be observed is established; due to the object, the mind capable of observing arises. Subject and object generate each other, and mind and objects stand in mutual opposition. Following conditions, they lose their nature and cannot return to the primordial source. Unwitting and unknowing, they pass through dust-like kalpas.

Therefore, the sūtra says: 'Awareness is not what is illuminated; because of illumination, the object is established. Once the object is falsely established, your false subjective capacity is born. Where there is neither sameness nor difference, difference blazes forth. Differentiating what is different from it, sameness is established based on difference. Sameness and difference having been demonstrated, based on this, neither-sameness-nor-difference is further established. Thus thrown into confusion, mutual opposition breeds exhaustion. Long exhaustion gives rise to defilement (rajas), turbid in its own characteristics. From this, the defilements of exhaustion and kleśas are aroused: when active, they become the world; when quiescent, they become empty space. Space is sameness; the world is difference. That which is neither sameness nor difference is truly conditioned phenomena.

'Luminous awareness and empty obscurity, mutually opposing, become oscillation; hence there is the wind circle, which upholds the world. Because of oscillation arising from emptiness, solid illumination establishes obstruction. As for gold and jewels, luminous awareness establishes solidity; hence there is the metal circle, which maintains the lands. Solid awareness forms jewels; oscillating illumination emits wind. Wind and metal rubbing against each other, there is the fire light, which constitutes the nature of transformation. The luminosity of jewels produces moisture; the fire light steams upward; hence there is the water circle, which encompasses the worlds of the ten directions. Fire rising and water descending, their alternating manifestation establishes solidity: the wet becomes the great seas, and the dry becomes continents and shoals. For this reason, within the great ocean, fire light constantly arises; within those continents and shoals, rivers and streams constantly flow. Where the power of water is inferior to fire, it congeals into high mountains; therefore, mountain rocks spark fire when struck and melt into water when liquefied. Where the power of earth is inferior to water, it shoots forth as grasses and trees; therefore, groves and thickets turn to earth when burned and yield water when squeezed. Intermingled falsities arise, mutually serving as seeds for one another. Through these causes and conditions, the world continues in succession.'

An ancient commentary says: 'Luminous awareness and empty obscurity, mutually opposing, become oscillation' means that from the initial false awareness and dimly projected illumination being not understood, empty obscurity consequently forms. It is like an obstruction to light producing darkness: the two characteristics shape one another. Luminous awareness is the characteristic of movement; empty obscurity is the characteristic of stillness. One bright, one dark; one moving, one still: arising moment to moment, like wind agitating waves, in ceaseless mutual opposition. Internally, its initial arising is called oscillation; externally, it forms the wind circle and the world. Empty obscurity is empty space; since it has no form or characteristic, it is not called a world.

'Because of oscillation arising from emptiness, solid illumination establishes obstruction' refers to the characteristic of earth. Because emptiness differs from illumination, their mutual opposition becomes oscillation. Oscillation can solidify illumination to form obstruction, just as an embryo encountering wind becomes hard and obstructive. It also means that clinging to illumination produces obstruction. Internally, it is the firm grasping of luminous awareness; externally, it becomes gold and jewels. Thus it says: 'As for gold and jewels, luminous awareness establishes solidity.' Therefore, know that the nature of jewels exists because of luminous awareness; for this reason, all jewels possess luminosity. The Hīnayāna only knows karmic retribution, but does not know what cause and seed it is.

'Solid awareness forms jewels; oscillating illumination emits wind. Wind and metal rubbing against each other, there is the fire light, which constitutes the nature of transformation' means: firmly grasping the nature of awareness forms jewels; oscillating what is illuminated emits wind. Ceaseless movement and stillness is the rubbing of wind and metal against each other. Externally, it becomes fire light, which can ripen the myriad things; thus it is said to constitute the nature of transformation.

'The luminosity of jewels produces moisture; the fire light steams upward; hence there is the water circle, which encompasses the worlds of the ten directions' means: the substance of the luminosity of jewels naturally has luster and moisture. Being steamed by the heat of fire, water flows forth. Moreover, luminous awareness generates affection (rāga); affection is moisture. Internally, it is luminous affection; externally, it becomes the moisture of jewels. The nature of fire steaming upward melts affection into water. All seeds of karma are not generated without affection; all worlds are not gathered together without water. Therefore, the natures of the four great elements depend mutually on one another, their substances inseparable, because they are transformed and arisen from the same single false mind. Know that the sky-flowers are not separate from the mind.

Furthermore, the nature of falsity is not constant; it transforms and varies before and after, and the external characteristics induced are unequal in superiority and inferiority. Where the mind of affection is predominant, it becomes the great oceans; where the mind of grasping is predominant, it becomes continents and shoals. The nature of wind generates pride (māna); the nature of fire generates anger (dveṣa). Affection arising toward material forms is the flowing water in shoals; anger arising against affection is the fire rising in the ocean. When pride increases and affection is weak, it congeals into high mountains; when affection increases and pride is slight, it shoots forth as grasses and trees. The three—anger, affection, and pride—mutually proliferate, taking shape as different classes: grasses, trees, mountains, and rivers in thousands of distinctions and myriad varieties. First from false imagination the four great elements congeal; from the natures of the four great elements, affection and pride proliferate. Apart from the minds of sentient beings, there is no other substance. Therefore it is said: 'Intermingled falsities arise, mutually serving as seeds for one another.'

It also says: 'Pūrṇa said to the Buddha: "World-Honoured One, if all the sense faculties, objects, aggregates, sense bases, and elements in the world are the tathāgatagarbha, pure and fundamentally so, why do mountains, rivers, the great earth, and all conditioned characteristics suddenly arise, continuously changing in succession, ending only to begin again?" He further doubted, saying: "If this wondrous awareness is fundamentally wondrous, luminous awareness, neither increasing nor decreasing with the Tathāgata's mind, why without reason do mountains, rivers, the great earth, and all conditioned characteristics suddenly arise? Now that the Tathāgata has attained the wondrously empty, luminous awareness, when will mountains, rivers, the great earth, and conditioned habits and outflows ever arise again?"

'The Buddha said: "Pūrṇa, as you have said, if it is pure and fundamentally so, why do mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise? Have you not often heard the Tathāgata declare: 'The nature of awareness is wondrously luminous; fundamental awareness is luminously wondrous'?" Pūrṇa said: "Yes, World-Honoured One, I have often heard the Buddha declare this principle."

'The Buddha said: "When you speak of luminous awareness, is it that the luminous nature is called awareness, or that unaware awareness is called luminous awareness?" Pūrṇa said: "If this absence of illumination is called awareness, then there is nothing to be illuminated." The Buddha said: "If there is nothing to be illuminated, then there is no luminous awareness. What has an object is not awareness; what lacks an object is not luminous. An absence of illumination is again not the limpid, luminous nature of awareness. The nature of awareness is necessarily luminous; falsely, it is taken as luminous awareness.

'"Awareness is not what is illuminated; because of illumination, the object is established. Once the object is falsely established, your false subjective capacity is born. Where there is neither sameness nor difference, difference blazes forth. Differentiating what is different from it, sameness is established based on difference. Sameness and difference having been demonstrated, based on this, neither-sameness-nor-difference is further established. Thus thrown into confusion, mutual opposition breeds exhaustion. Long exhaustion gives rise to defilement, turbid in its own characteristics. From this, the defilements of exhaustion and kleśas are aroused: when active, they become the world; when quiescent, they become empty space. Space is sameness; the world is difference. That which is neither sameness nor difference is truly conditioned phenomena."'

Explanation: The meaning of these two kinds of awareness is subtle and difficult to comprehend; if one wishes to explain it, black must be distinguished from white. Broadly speaking, the sūtras and treatises have two kinds of awareness: first, nature-awareness (svabhāva-bodhi); second, fundamental awareness (mūla-bodhi). There are also two kinds of prajñā: first, fundamental-awareness prajñā; second, initial-awareness prajñā. There are also two kinds of mind: first, the naturally pure mind; second, the defilement-free pure mind. There are also two kinds of tathatā: first, tathatā amidst bondage; second, tathatā released from bondage. In these four categories, names differ according to meaning, but their substance is ever the same.

Now, all sentient beings only possess nature-awareness, pure fundamental awareness, the naturally pure mind, and tathatā amidst bondage. Within what is pure and fundamentally so, mountains, rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise through falsity, because being amidst bondage they have not yet departed from obstacles, and have not attained tathatā released from bondage. As for the Buddhas of the ten directions, both awarenesses are complete; they already possess tathatā released from bondage and the like, are free from false imagination, defilement, and exhaustion, and are eternally united with what is pure and fundamentally so. Thus they do not again generate mountains, rivers, the great earth, and conditioned characteristics. Just as gold that has come out of the ore never again becomes soiled with dust and mud, and just as wood burned to ash can never sprout branches and leaves again. With these two kinds of awareness, doubts are completely resolved.

'The nature of awareness is wondrously luminous' refers to the naturally pure mind, which is the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, tathatā amidst bondage, and the like. Its fundamental nature is pure and undefiled by kleśas, hence it is named nature-awareness. The sūtra says: 'The Buddha told Ānanda and the great assembly: "You should know that in the world of outflows, the fundamentally luminous, wondrously aware, and perfectly complete mental substance of the twelve classes of living beings is not two and not different from the Buddhas of the ten directions. Due to your false imagination, mistaking the principle is the fault; ignorance and affection arise. Their arising and developing pervade with delusion; hence the nature of emptiness exists. Transformations and delusions ceaseless, worlds arise. Thus, these lands of fine dust in the ten directions that are not free of outflows are all established by confused and obstinate false imagination. You should know that empty space is born within your mind just like a fleck of cloud dotting the great expanse of clear sky, how much more so all the worlds within empty space! If one person among you realizes truth and returns to the origin, this empty space in the ten directions all completely dissolves away; how could the lands within space not collapse and split?"' Through the evidence of this passage, one knows that ordinary beings and sages are fundamentally identical in this wondrously luminous awareness.

'Fundamental awareness is luminously wondrous' refers to tathatā released from bondage and the like. Through non-conceptual wisdom, it completely awakens to the exhaustion of beginningless false thoughts; this is named ultimate awareness. Initial awareness is fundamental awareness; the awareness that awakens to the origin attains the name of fundamental awareness. A treatise says: 'In the gate of tathatā, it is named nature-awareness; in the gate of arising and ceasing, it is named fundamental awareness.' Because of delusion regarding this nature-awareness, false thoughts exist; if false thoughts are exhausted, fundamental awareness is established. Because nature-awareness does not arise from subject and object, nor does it arise through practice and realization, but is fundamentally wondrous and ever luminous, it is said that 'the nature of awareness is wondrously luminous.' Because initial-awareness prajñā illuminates the wonder of nature-awareness, it is said that 'fundamental awareness is luminously wondrous.' Moreover, because the nature of tathatā is intrinsically understanding, 'the nature of awareness is wondrously luminous'; because the wisdom of initial awareness understands the fundamental nature, 'fundamental awareness is luminously wondrous.'

Furthermore, the Mahāyāna Treatise states that there are four kinds of awareness: first, pure fundamental awareness; second, fundamental awareness of defilement and purity; third, pure initial awareness; fourth, initial awareness of defilement and purity. If one discusses the matter of the luminosity and obscurity of the fundamental and the initial, all receive their names based on the awareness of defilement and purity. As for the pure source of awareness, both foolishness and wisdom are cut off; it is not something attained by delusion or awakening, how could words and meanings express it? In the sūtras, the Buddha constantly said that tathatā is the support for both delusion and awakening, just as the myriad phenomena depend on empty space, while empty space depends on nothing. Therefore, Pūrṇa understood and said: 'I have often heard the Buddha declare this principle.'

The meaning of these two kinds of awareness also corresponds to the one mind established in the Awakening of Faith, divided into the two gates of tathatā and arising-and-ceasing. The fundamental purity of nature is the meaning of nature-awareness; but when awareness is spoken of in terms of nature, it is like the nature of fire within wood: without conditions fully assembled, it exists but lacks function. It is not that having awakened, one generates delusion again. At the time of awakening, the designation of fundamental awareness is first established. Having awakened to fundamental awareness, one never again becomes deluded; that Buddhas should become ordinary beings again is impossible.

The Buddha asked: 'When you speak of luminous awareness, is it that the nature of awareness is intrinsically luminous and named luminous awareness, or is it that the substance of awareness is not luminous, but capable of being aware of illumination?' Pūrṇa's idea was that there must be an object of illumination present to consciousness serving as what is perceived by it; if there is no illumination to be perceived, there is no designation of luminous awareness—it could only be called awareness, without anything illuminated; hence he said: 'then there is nothing to be illuminated.'

The Buddha's meaning is that the substance of nature-awareness is intrinsically luminous; it is not because of a subjective awareness and an objective illumination that it is called luminous awareness. The Awakening of Faith says: 'The substance of tathatā has the meaning of great wisdom and luminosity, the meaning of universally illuminating the dharmadhātu,' and so forth. It is only because of delusion regarding the one dharmadhātu that subject and object are forcibly divided, thus forming falsity. If it must depend on an object of illumination before being called luminous awareness, this is established based on an other, and is not the awareness of one's own nature; hence it is said: 'What has an object is not awareness.' It is like having a false mind due to distinguishing external dust; apart from dust, it has no substance. One cannot take an annihilated mind to be the primordial, true awareness. If one took a substanceless phenomenon to be ultimate, as the sūtra says: 'The dharmakāya would be the same as the horns of a hare or the hairs of a tortoise; who then would cultivate and realize the patience of the unarisen dharmas?'

Another explanation states: 'If this absence of illumination is called awareness, then there is nothing to be illuminated' shows that the substance of awareness fundamentally lacks characteristics of illumination. When the Buddha realized the ultimate limit of reality, he truly did not perceive illumination. If he perceived illumination, it would be an object of illumination; once an object of illumination is established, there is a perceiving awareness. Only when the illumination of subject and object is removed can it be called wondrous luminosity. This wondrous luminosity is the illumination of non-illumination; it is not the same as an object of illumination where illumination gives rise to shining. Therefore, the Treatise on Prajñā Being Free of Knowing says: