宗鏡錄 83.3

83.3

Answer: In terms of the correct source, the path of citta and prajñā is cut off; but if one departs from the two truths, the gate of upāya is severed. Because the true mind is the dharma of personal realization, what words could it have? All teachings that can express it are nothing but conventional designations; therefore it is said that they rely on the two truths to teach the Dharma. A verse in the Vajrasamādhi-sūtra says: 'The meaning arisen from causes and conditions— / this meaning ceases, not arises; / extinguishing all meanings of arising and ceasing— / this meaning arises, not ceases.' The commentary explains: 'These four lines have both a general and a specific meaning. Specifically, they clarify the meaning of the two gates; generally, they reveal the dharma of the one mind. Within this one mind and two gates, all phenomena are completely subsumed. The first two blend the conventional into the ultimate, revealing the meaning of equality; the latter two blend the ultimate into the conventional, revealing the gate of differentiation. Speaking generally, the ultimate and conventional are non-dual, yet do not keep to the one. Because they are non-dual, they are the one mind; because they do not keep to the one, the entire substance becomes the two.' Furthermore, the non-dual, single real dharma of the ultimate and conventional is that to which all Buddhas return, named the tathāgatagarbha. It clarifies that limitless dharmas and all practices invariably return and enter into the tathāgatagarbha. The meanings and characteristics expressed by the boundless teachings have no other purport than the single real meaning. What is called 'real' is the nature of one's own mind; apart from this, all are illusory. The Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa says: 'Apart from the one real mark, all the rest become the work of Māra.' The Lotus Sūtra says: 'Only this one phenomenon is real; the other two are not true.' In general, the central intent of the sūtras and treatises is to reveal the source and destroy attachments, singularly pointing to the mind-nature. If one thoroughly penetrates that all phenomena are the mind's own nature, that outside the mind there is no phenomenon, and that the nature encompasses everything just as empty space pervades everywhere, then all phenomena are nothing other than the real mark. Therefore we know that all meanings are merely the thought-moment of the mind. The single principle responds to all names, because there are no names outside the principle; all names are the single principle, because there is no principle outside of names. Thus it is the true name of the nameless, the true principle of the principleless. Therefore, the one mind and the two truths are fully sufficient in substance and function. Originally discussing the conventional based on the ultimate, from the one arise the many; returning to discuss the ultimate based on the conventional, from the many one converges on the one. It is like the wish-fulfilling jewel: the jewel is an analogy for the ultimate, and its function is an analogy for the conventional. The jewel is the function; the function is the jewel. They are non-dual yet dual, merely distinguished as ultimate and conventional. The Awakening of Faith clarifies the one mind and two gates: the gate of the mind as tathatā is the substance, because all phenomena are without arising and ceasing, originally serene, being only the one mind; this is called the gate of the mind as tathatā. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra says: 'That which is quiescent cessation is called the one mind.' The gate of the mind as arising and ceasing is the function. This substance of the one mind possesses original awakening, yet following avidyā it stirs and produces arising and ceasing; therefore, in this gate, the nature of the Tathāgata is hidden and unmanifest, named the tathāgatagarbha. The Laṅkāvatārasūtra says: 'The one mind is named the tathāgatagarbha.' It also says: 'The tathāgatagarbha is the cause of good and non-good.' These two gates are distinguished as two according to substance and function. If one takes the function of the whole substance, the function is not separate from the substance; if one takes the substance of the whole function, the substance is not separate from the function; returning to consider their oneness, because the nature of the one mind's defilement and purity is non-dual, the two gates of truth and falsity cannot be different; therefore it is called 'one'. This place of non-duality is the reality within all dharmas, not like empty space, and its nature is spontaneously aware; therefore it is called 'mind'. Since there are not two, how could there be one? One being non-existent, in reference to whom could it be called mind? Such a principle is beyond words and cuts off deliberation; not knowing how to express it, one forcefully designates it as the 'one mind'.