宗鏡錄 96.26

96.26

A verse in the *Guangbo yanjing jing* states: / 'The sovereign Guide of the World, / speaks what cannot be spoken: / making a knot in empty space, / he unties it right in space itself.' / Explanation: When citta exists, there is a knot; when citta is empty, there is untying. If there is no citta, there is neither knot nor untying. Thus the *Śūraṅgamasūtra* says: 'The Buddha told Ānanda: "Regarding this jeweled cloth, you know that originally it was only one piece. When I tied it six times, it was called having six knots. Observe carefully: the substance of the cloth is identical, yet due to the knots differences arise. What do you think? When the first knot was tied and formed, it was called the first. In this way, up to the sixth knot being produced, if I now wish to call the sixth knot the first, could that be?" / "No, World-Honoured One. If the six knots remain, that sixth designation can never be the first. Even if throughout my lifetimes I exhausted all my clear eloquence, how could I confuse the names of these six knots?" / The Buddha said: "The six knots are not the same; yet looking back at their source, they were made from a single piece of cloth. One can never confuse them. Your six sense faculties are also like this: within ultimate identity, ultimate differences are born." / The Buddha told Ānanda: "If you dislike these six knots and wish not to have them, desiring only that unity be established, how can that be achieved?" / Ānanda said: "As long as these knots remain, rights and wrongs arise in sharp contention, and therein automatically emerges: 'this knot is not that, that knot is not this.' If the Tathāgata today were to undo them all completely, then if knots are no longer produced, there would be neither 'this' nor 'that'. Even unity could no longer be named; how could six be established?" / The Buddha said: "When the six are undone, the one vanishes; it is also like this. Because your citta-nature has been wildly confused from beginningless time, false views and perceptions have arisen. The arising of falsehood does not cease, and the strain of seeing produces dust. Just as straining the eyes produces wild flowers in the clear and bright expanse, arising chaotically without cause, so all the worlds, the mountains, rivers, and the great earth, saṃsāra and nirvāṇa, are entirely the false, strained, inverted appearances of flowers." / Ānanda said: "This strain is like a knot; how is it to be undone?" / The Tathāgata took the knotted cloth in his hand, pulled it to the left, and asked Ānanda: "Is it undone like this?" / "No, World-Honoured One." / Then he took it and pulled it to the right, and again asked Ānanda: "Is it undone like this?" / "No, World-Honoured One." / The Buddha told Ānanda: "Now I have pulled it left and right with my hands, yet in the end it cannot be undone. If you were to devise an expedient means, how would it be undone?" / Ānanda said to the Buddha: "World-Honoured One, one must untie it at the center of the knot, and then it will come apart." / The Buddha told Ānanda: "So it is, so it is. If you wish to eliminate the knots, you must do so at the center of the knot."' / Explanation: Pulling to the left and right symbolizes the two views of existence and non-existence. Being at the center of the knot directly illuminates the Middle Way. Therefore, savoring the true and empty causes the emotional realm of existence to arise; grasping at faculties and dust causes the meaning of 'one' and 'six' to be born. When one clearly understands one's own citta, both untying and binding vanish. Thus we know that defilement and purity, untying and binding, all derive from one's own citta. Because citta is defiled, one sees defilement; because citta is pure, one sees purity. Because citta is bound, one sees bondage; because citta is untied, one sees release. If there were no citta, what defilement and what purity could there be? As the *Śūraṅgamasamādhisūtra* says: 'At that time in the assembly there was a bodhisattva named Unsoiled Practice in Māra's Realm. He manifested in the palace of Māra and said to the evil Māra: "Have you not heard that the Buddha spoke the Śūraṅgamasamādhi, and immeasurable sentient beings all generated the aspiration for anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, transcended your realm, and will also deliver other people so that they transcend your realm?" / Māra replied: "When I heard the name of the Śūraṅgamasamādhi spoken by the Buddha, I was bound by five bonds and could not go—namely, my two hands, two feet, and neck." / [The bodhisattva] again asked the evil Māra: "Who bound you?" / Māra replied: "Just as I generated the intention to go and disrupt those who listen to and receive the Śūraṅgamasamādhi, I was immediately bound by five bonds. Then I thought: 'The Buddhas and bodhisattvas have great majestic power and are difficult to disrupt. If I go, I might destroy myself. It is better to stay in this palace of mine.' Having thought this, I was immediately liberated from the five bonds." / The bodhisattva replied: "So it is. All ordinary persons recollect, discriminate, and invertedly grasp at characteristics, and therefore they are bound. Stirring thought and indulging in conceptual proliferation, they are therefore bound. Seeing, hearing, perceiving, and knowing, they are therefore bound. Herein there is actually neither binder nor freed one. Why is this? All phenomena are without bondage, because they are fundamentally liberated. All phenomena are without liberation, because they are fundamentally without bondage. They are eternally of the characteristic of liberation, without any delusion. The Tathāgata expounds the Dharma through this Dharma-gate. If any sentient beings come to know this meaning, seek liberation, and apply themselves with diligent citta and vigor, they will attain liberation from all bonds."'