宗鏡錄 85.17

85.17

Answer: Speaking of refuting characteristics is for those who have not yet entered vijñaptimātra, to remove their delusive attachments. Though one speaks of refuting characteristics, in truth there is nothing to be refuted. Since there is no existence to be refuted, there is also no emptiness capable of refuting it. When emotional attachment dissolves, emptiness and existence are both quiescent. External objects are not fixed; refutation and establishment follow citta. The delusion that obscures truth does not arise, and the truth that contrasts with delusion is also ended. The *Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa* says: "Grasping various characteristics is entirely false, just like a crystal jewel changes according to the color before it, having no fixed color of its own. All phenomena are also like this: they have no fixed characteristics, but differ in accordance with citta. As for characteristics such as permanent or impermanent: if with an angry mind, one sees this person as vile; if the angry mind ceases and lustful mind naturally arises, one sees this person again as good; if with an arrogant mind arising, one considers this person lowly and base; yet hearing that they have virtue, one again gives rise to respect. Such loving and hating with reason, or loving and hating without reason, are all false imaginings. If falsehood is eliminated, there is also no sign of emptiness, sign of signlessness, or sign of wishlessness, because there is nothing to be refuted." Since one does not even take the principle of signlessness as the source, how could one preserve a gate of refutation and establishment? This is because completion, destruction, rejecting, and grasping all stem from one's own citta. If one directly understands citta, contemplation naturally ends. As the verses in the *Laṅkāvatārasūtra* say: / In everything there is no nirvāṇa, / nor is there a nirvāṇa-Buddha, / nor is there a Buddha's nirvāṇa; / it is far removed from the perceiving and the perceived. / Whether existence or non-existence, / both of these are completely transcended. / The silent and tranquil contemplation of the Muni / is thereby far removed from arising; / this is called non-grasping, / pure in the present world and future worlds. / There are two and a half verses. Dayun explains: "The first verse completely understands present oneness-as-such; this refers to revealing the consummate nature through the contemplation of wishlessness. Because there is no nirvāṇa-Buddha, there is therefore no wish. The first line means that among all phenomena such as form and citta, there is no attainment of nirvāṇa, because all phenomena are fundamentally such. If one attains nirvāṇa, that is the view of annihilation or permanence: the extinction of phenomena is annihilation, while realization and attainment is permanence. In the second line, since there is no nirvāṇa, how could there be a Buddha? Therefore the sūtra says: 'Seeing the severing of kleśas to attain Buddhahood is called destroying the Buddhadharma,' because kleśas and Buddha-nature are quiescent. In the fourth line, because the perceived is such, there is no nirvāṇa; because the perceiver is such, there is no attaining of Buddhahood. Leaving behind the perceiver and the perceived, they blend into one single suchness."