宗鏡錄 85.7

85.7

Answer: Merely understand non-action, and karma is naturally empty. Therefore it is said: 'If one understands unacted evil karma, one achieves buddhahood in a single lifetime.' It is also said: 'Although there is the creation of karma, there is no creator'—this is the secret teaching of the Tathāgata. Furthermore, whenever karma is created, it is entirely one's own mind falsely calculating external dharmas, in turn countering itself, and grasping delusion to produce karma. If one understands the mind and does not grasp, the object naturally does not arise; with no dharma to drag upon the emotions, how could karma be formed? The Sea of Meanings says: 'To eliminate karmic retribution is [to understand that] it is because of sense dusts that one fails to understand one's own mind, taking there to be dharmas outside the mind, thereby giving rise to aversion and love, and forming retribution from the karma of craving. However, this karmic retribution arises from the mind being deluded by sense dusts and falsely calculating; it only appears as though existent, yet none of it has reality. The deluded person takes the characteristics of sense dusts as having a place from which they come, and so gives rise again to this delusion. Now, understanding that the characteristics of sense dusts have no substance is awakening. Delusion fundamentally has no place from which it comes, and awakening also has no place to which it goes. Why is this? Because taking the deluded mind to be existent fundamentally has no substance. Like a snake upon a rope, it fundamentally has no place from which it comes, nor any place to which it goes. Why is this? Because the deluded mind falsely calculating the snake to be existent fundamentally has no substance. If one calculates that there is a place of coming or a place of going, that is still delusion; understanding that there is neither going nor coming is awakening. Awakening and delusion are established in mutual dependence; it is not that there was first a pure mind and afterward avidyā. These are not two things and cannot be understood as two. Merely understanding that delusion is devoid of delusion is itself the pure mind; there is never first a pure mind and afterward avidyā. Therefore, know that delusion and awakening are solely the one mind, just like turning a hand over: it is merely a single hand. When one penetrates this deeply, the shadow of karma dissolves of itself.' As the Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra says: 'At that time, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī asked the bodhisattva Guṇaprabha: "Child of the Buddha! All sentient beings equally possess the four great elements, and are without self and without what belongs to a self. Why is it that there is the experiencing of suffering and experiencing of pleasure, uprightness and ugliness, inner goodness and outer goodness, little reception and much reception, or the reception of retribution in the present, or the reception of retribution in the future? Yet within the dharmadhātu there is neither fine nor evil." Then the bodhisattva Guṇaprabha answered with verses, saying: / "According to the karma that is practiced, / Such karmic retribution arises. / There is no creator at all; / This is what all Buddhas teach. / Just like a clear, bright mirror: / In accordance with the objects facing it, / The manifested images are each different; / The nature of karma is also like this. / It is also like seeds in a field: / Each not knowing the other, / They naturally are able to sprout; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Again, like a skillful illusionist, / At the intersection of four roads, / Manifesting various visible forms; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Like a mechanical wooden figure, / Capable of producing various sounds, / In it there is neither self nor not-self; / The nature of karma is also like this. / It is also like the various kinds of birds: / Emerging from the eggshell, / Their voices are each different; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Just as within the womb, / The various sense faculties are all completed, / Their substance and characteristics having no place of coming; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Again, as in hell, / The various painful matters / All have nowhere from which they come; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Just as a wheel-turning king / Is endowed with the seven supreme jewels, / Whose place of coming cannot be found; / The nature of karma is also like this. / Again, as with various worlds, / Burned by great fires, / This fire has no place of coming; / The nature of karma is also like this."' The Sūtra on Purifying Karmic Obstacles says: 'To view all dharmas as precisely the Buddhadharma—this is the purification of all karmic obstacles.'