宗鏡錄 79.23

79.23

Answer: The worlds, bodies, and lands are naturally so of themselves (dharmatā); one cannot cling to identity or difference based on the emotional views of self-nature. If one speaks of ‘naturally so of themselves’, that is ‘dharmas being as they are’. Or if one calls it ‘dharma-nature’: if it is dharma-nature, then it takes the fundamental consciousness, the body of the tathāgatagarbha, as its support, constantly and suddenly transforming to give rise to the external receptacle worlds. It does not go beyond these two: first, dharmas should be like this; second, the storehouse consciousness transforms and gives rise to them. Furthermore, through the karma of sentient beings as well as the myriad practices of bodhisattvas as causes and conditions, the worlds that appear are all the nimittabhāga of the storehouse consciousness. Within the nimittabhāga, half becomes the external receptacle [world] and is not appropriated; half becomes the internal body, appropriated as self-nature to give rise to sensations. For what reason is the tathāgatagarbha consciousness like this? Because dharmas are as they are; because they are led by the power of karma. Although the two meanings of appropriated and not appropriated are distinguished above, both lack self-nature; they entirely take the one true mind of the Buddha-dharmadhātu’s tathatā as their substance. One should know that the dependent is the direct, and the direct is the dependent; they do not go beyond the true nature of the one mind. Moreover, nature leaves nothing unencompassed: sentient and insentient, having awareness and lacking awareness, all take the nature of one’s own mind as substance. Manifesting according to conditions, they are known only when corresponding to their situations. For example, in the world when a shrine is erected for a living person whose virtuous administration has reached the people, often because of remaining love and fond remembrance after departure, a shrine hall is established for them, with a sculpted image inside to receive sacrifices in the four seasons. On the day of the sacrifice, that person feels the sensation of wine and a full stomach. It is also like the utmost filial piety of Ding Lan, who carved wood into [the likeness of] his mother and served it with reverence morning and evening, and its form showed expressions of joy and displeasure. Yet earth and wood do not change; it is only the mind that responds.