宗鏡錄 79.5

79.5

The verse answers: 'Mutually they serve as sovereign conditions; / The minds of this and that combine in conditions.' Because all sentient beings falsely discriminate, think, and recollect, 'He speaks and I hear,' while in reality there is no sensory object before one. Therefore, if one clings to internal and external, mind and sensory objects oppose each other, and one has not even entered the gate of faith, how could it be called listening to the Dharma? The Dhāraṇīśvararāja Sūtra states: 'When the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and manas have nothing flowing in and heard, that is called listening to the sūtra. If one is defiled by the sense bases (āyatana), then there is nothing heard, and one merely abides in form.' The Vajramaṇḍadhāraṇī Sūtra states: 'The absence of all dharmas is named the one-syllable dhāraṇī Dharma-gate.' If one can have faith and understanding like this, the listener has nothing heard and nothing attained; only when mind and sensory objects are non-dual does one hear the sūtras spoken by the Buddha, which can be called true hearing and meeting a good friend. If one listens to the Dharma with a conditioned mind, this Dharma is also a condition and does not attain the Dharma-nature; then one flows along with sensory objects and turns following causes and conditions, all because of not understanding one's own Dharma, thereby causing internal and external conditions to divide. As a sūtra states, the Buddha said: 'Wherever this sūtra is present, there is a Buddha, no different from my abiding in the world.' Hence we know that the Buddha of one's own mind is everywhere pervasive; how could one speak of earlier or later, appearing or disappearing? If one follows different sensory objects, there is impermanence of arising and ceasing; if one sees other Buddhas, concealment and manifestation are inconstant; if one recites other sūtras, the voice is interrupted. Therefore the Patriarch said: 'Seeking a Buddha with characteristics externally does not resemble you.' Master Zhi said: 'Reciting a thousand rolls of sūtras every day, seeing the sūtra on paper, one does not recognize it.' Furthermore, an ancient virtuous one said: 'The outgoing breath does not depend on external conditions; the incoming breath does not abide in the aggregates (skandha) or realms (dhātu). Constantly turning such a sūtra is not merely hundreds of thousands of myriad rolls.' How can that compare to awakening to this true good friend, presenting itself moment to moment, naturally turning the sūtra of the inexhaustible treasury, blazing and eternally expounding?