 |
||
|
||
|
||
| Contents Door 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 previous next * Preface | ||
Prologue:
The fundamental and the afterwards obtained accord with states to sever delusions. Speaking in terms of meaning, there is twin contemplation, but there is definite difference in illumination. By using conditioned wisdom, there is certification to unconditioned principle the meaning spoken is not different, yet the actuality is not one.
Commentary:
The fundamental wisdom is that of True Suchness which one has to start with, and the afterwards obtained through cultivation is non-ultimate attainment of only a small amount. The preceeding five consciousnesses can turn into Wisdom Afterwards Obtained, but both types of wisdom accord with states to sever delusions.
Fundamental wisdom accords with states of Absolute Truth – true states – to cut off delusions about principle (noumenon), that is, thought delusions. Wisdom Afterwards Obtained accords with states of Relative Truth – worldly states – to cut off delusions about specifics (phenomena), that is, view delusions. Delusions of views come from non-recognition and are severed by understanding specific things. Delusions of thought come from not understanding principle, and are severed by reaching that understanding. View delusions are:
When faced with states, giving rise to greed and love.
It refers to specifics and what is conditioned and external.
Thought delusions are:
Being confused about principle, and giving rise to discriminations.
They are in the realm of principle and the unconditioned. Only fundamental wisdom can cut off delusions about specific phenomena. Both therefore accord with states to cut off delusions.Speaking in terms of meaning, there is twin contemplation. The principle involved is that either kind of wisdom can contemplate both kinds of Truths – the Absolute and the Relative we have been talking about; but there is definite difference in illumination. It’s the same cultivation, but the accomplishments are different. Fundamental wisdom severs delusions both of principle and specifics.
But although Wisdom Afterwards Obtained can contemplate both the absolute and the relative, it can only sever delusions involving confusion about specifics. That means by using conditioned wisdom, which is fabricated and contrived, not natural, there is certification to unconditioned principle in the future. The meaning spoken is not different, yet the actuality is not one. The meaning is that cultivating and illuminating do not entail two different things; but the fact is there is actual difference between what can illumine and what is illumined, between what can sever and what is severed.
Prologue:
Since world-transcending wisdom depends upon the seeds of consciousnesses that are produced and destroyed, therefore the levels of mind of the four wisdoms are shifts of marks, and the reward body of the fruit of Buddhahood is conditioned yet without outflows.
Commentary:
Since cultivation of world-transcending wisdom, according to the doctrines of the Initial Teaching, depends upon the seeds of consciousnesses that are produced and destroyed, therefore the levels of mind of the four wisdoms of a Buddha are shifts and changes of conditioned dharmas with marks.
The Four Wisdoms
- Wisdom that Accomplishes What is done.
- Wisdom of Wonderful Contemplation.
- Wisdom of Equality
- Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom
And the reward body of the position of the fruit of Buddhahood is conditioned yet without outflows. Cultivation to completion of conditioned dharmas subject to the Four marks discussed before leads to attaining the non-outflowing Reward Body, that is, True Suchness of Nirvana. That cultivation, based on seeds of consciousness subject to production and extinction, bring about the non-outflowing True Suchness of Nirvana of the Fruit of Buddhahood – a very forced and far from perfect doctrine.
Prologue:
Of doctrines such as those there are a great many expansions, as set forth in the yogacharya-vinishchaya-samgraha, and so forth.
Commentary:
Of the Initial Teaching’s doctrines such as those, which are not perfectly fused and interpenetrating or mutually unobstructive, there are a great many expansions. But you won’t find them saying, as does the Dharma Nature School, that when one is cut off, all are cut off, or that severance on the phenomenal level is also severance on the noumenal level.
The Dharma Nature School makes phenomena and noumena identical with each other and interfused, and has truth and falseness interlink and mingle in unobstructed interpenetration where whatever way it is discussed is right. By contrast, the discussions of doctrine in the Dharma Marks School have a very forced and unnatural feeling to them. If you wish to know more about them, you can consult such treatments as are found in the yogacharya-vinishchaya-samgraha the Bodhisattva Asanga; no Chinese translation available, and so forth.
Prologue:
In the third, the final teaching, there is little talk of Dharma marks, and much discussion of the Dharma nature, and what is said of Dharma marks is also brought back to the nature.
Commentary:
To review, the Hsien Shou – the Flower Adornment (“hua yen”) – School’s Five Teaching, we have already discussed the first, the Small Teaching. That was the Three Stores (“Tripitaka”) Teaching for the Small Vehicle. Then we discussed the second, the Initial Teaching, which starts to present the Great Vehicle. It primarily talks of Dharma marks, with little discussion of the Dharma nature, and what there is is not in great detail.
Now In the third, which is called the final teaching, we finally get the rest of the Great Vehicle. There is little talk of Dharma marks within the Final Teaching, and what is said of Dharma marks is also brought back to the nature, proportionately more emphasis being given in its teaching doctrines to separation from the mark of terms and words, and separation from the mark of what is thought by mind. Its principles are that:
The path of language is cut off,
And the place of the mind’s workings is extinguished.This belongs to emptiness, whereas the preceding Initial Teaching belonged to existence. “And what is said of Dharma marks,” when here and there they are discussed, “is also brought back to” the principle of the “the” Dharma “nature.” For example, when the Final Teaching considers the dharmas of the Five Skandhas, it says the Five Skandhas are basically empty, and that emptiness is the Dharma Nature which has no shape or form. Any talk of the characteristics of dharmas eventually leads to the principle of emptiness, which is the doctrine of this Teaching.
Prologue:
The eighth consciousness established coincides with the Thus Come One’s Treasury, set as according with conditions, and the not produced or destroyed and the produced and destroyed form a combination, being neither one nor different.
Commentary:
The eighth consciousness established by the Final Teaching is not subject to production and extinction. It is a turning of consciousness into wisdom – the Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom – and so it coincides with the Thus Come One’s Treasury. They are the same. The Shurangama Sutra has a detailed discussion of how the Seven Elements are all the nature of the Treasury of the Thus Come One. In investigating that Sutra, you should put effort into understanding the Seven Elements, so what the Treasury of the Thus Come One is will become clear.
In the Final Teaching, the nature of the Thus Come One’s Treasury is set up as according with conditions, and it, the not produced or destroyed, is conjoined with what has production and extinction. It’s not that non-production and non-extinction exit apart from what is produced and destroyed.
And the produced and destroyed is not separate from that which is not subject to production and extinction, so they are said to form a combination. The produced and destroyed and the not produced and not destroyed are combined with one another so that production and extinction itself is just the not produced and not destroyed. And the not produced and not destroyed itself is production and extinction. It’s right within production and extinction that the power of the not produced and not destroyed is found. Non-production and non-extinction are not something different and elsewhere from what is produced and destroyed, or they would be two different things. Therefore, they happen as a combination, being neither one nor different.
If you try to say they are one, they aren’t. But you won’t be right if you try to say they are two. They are neither one nor two different things. The only solution is that they are a totality formed by combination – not exactly one, but not really different. That is, there’s no split between the eighth consciousness and the Thus Come One’s Treasury. The one is just the other. In the Initial Teaching, the eighth consciousness was produced and destroyed, but in this Teaching it isn’t.
The eighth consciousness is also known as the alaya or “store” consciousness, and “store” is just the same as “treasury,” as in the Thus Come One’s Treasury. Therefore, there’s no Thus Come One’s Treasury other and apart from the eighth consciousness, nor is there an eighth consciousness separate from the Treasury of the Thus Come One. It’s right in the eighth consciousness that there is the Treasury of the Thus Come One, the tathagatagarbha.
But in our Thus Come One’s Storehouse, too many waves have been stirred up, just like the waves in the sea, and there are lots of waves in our eighth consciousness, too. The waves are simple our false thoughts, our subtle delusions, coarse delusions, and delusions like dust and sand – delusions of ignorance. All of those delusions are waves, and so in the description of the eighth consciousness in the Rule-Verses on the Eighth Consciousness it says:
How plentiful the three storings, that cannot be exhausted!
“Many meanings” Dharma Masters talk about the eighth consciousness, whereas “Few Meanings” Dharma Masters discuss the Treasury of the Thus Come One. There are overflowing stores from the past, the present, and the future, more than could ever be depleted, just like endless waves.
How deep the seventh’s waves, as states act as the wind!
The seventh consciousness has deeply profound waves and does the transmitting between the sixth – the mind consciousness – and the eighth consciousness. You could call the seventh consciousness a “postman,” because it’s always delivering and bringing back news.
Being infused, holding seeds, the vessel of organs.
The last to leave, first to arrive, it is the ruling dignitary.The eighth consciousness is always being perfumed and infused, and in it are stored seeds which become the body with its six sense organs, six sense objects, and six associated consciousnesses. They all come from it.
When you die, the eighth consciousness can’t give you up, and you don’t want to part from it, either. It keeps on holding hands with your stinking skin bag and neither wants to let go, although that is the original intention. It sis the last to leave, after the eye consciousness, the ear consciousness, the nose consciousness, the tongue consciousness, the body consciousness, the mind consciousness and the manas consciousness have gone. And whenever someone is born, the first thing to take birth is the eighth consciousness. It is the big shot, the old “boss” of our body. Any who want to be boss are the eighth consciousness – and it’s the “many meanings” Dharma Master.
So don’t go looking for the Treasury of the Thus Come One somewhere else outside of the eighth consciousness, and don’t search for an eighth consciousness elsewhere than within the Treasury of the Thus Come One. This is just the same principle as ice being identical with water and water being ice. The combination formed by production and extinction being the not produced and not destroyed is the same.
Afflictions are just Bodhi.
Birth and death are just Nirvana.This is the Dharma of mutual identity. If you’re looking for Bodhi, all you have to do is turn afflictions around, and just that is Bodhi. If you wish to obtain the virtues of the Fruit of Great Nirvana – permanence, bliss, true self, and purity – just turn birth and death around, and that itself is Nirvana. Whatever is birth and death – samsara – is Nirvana, and whatever is Nirvana is birth and death. They are:
Two and yet not two;
Not two, yet two.Try to say they aren’t two and they still are two. But are they two? Not quite. This prevents you from knowing how many they are. You can’t count this number clearly even though it’s a very small figure.
Someone wants to know what the seven great elements are that are the Treasury of the Thus Come One, as discussed in the Shurangama Sutra. They are “great” because they fill every place and pervade the Dharma Realm. They aren’t just in one place, nor is there any one place where they are not present. There is no place they are, and no place where they are not. All seven are that way, but people only see a small amount of them, and are unaware of their filling the Dharma Realm. Instead, people feel they themselves are the great element, far greater than the other seven.
The Seven Great Elements
- The element of Earth
- The element of Water
- The element of Fire
- The element of Air (wind)
- The element of Space
- The element of Vision
- The element of Consciousness
People fail to recognize the seven as great and either don’t know about them, or add themselves as the eighth great. Their reasoning then goes that since the other seven greats need the eighth great to know them so they won’t remain unknown, the eighth must therefore be the greatest.
Prologue:
All living beings share the sameness of a single nature. They only come about through true suchness according with conditions.
Commentary:
All living beings share the sameness of a single nature, which doesn’t decrease the least in ordinary common ones, or increase at all in Buddhas. So, extending up to all Buddhas and reaching down to living beings, it’s one and the same, and in the same proportion. The single nature is the Buddha nature, the One Vehicle besides which there is no other Vehicle.
All living beings are endowed with the meritorious qualities of the nature of the One Vehicle, and they only come about through true suchness according with conditions. True Suchness accords with conditions, which is why there are living beings. Another way of saying this is that from limitless kalpas up to now the habit of evil has saturated the Treasury of the Thus Come One so that it has turned into consciousness. When that happens it’s called “according with conditions.” Yet, although it accords with conditions, it still does not change. Living beings come about through its according with conditions, but in its basic substance there has been no change.
Prologue:
That without a nature, because dependent on something else, is identical with the perfectly accomplished.
Commentary:
We talked before about the Three Natures. The Nature Everywhere Calculated and Attached to is produced upon encountering the shadow of a sense impression. When that nature passes, there is the Nature That Arises Dependent on Something Else, produced due to causes and conditions. Whatever is produced due to causes and conditions, is empty, and that emptiness is the Perfectly Accomplished Real Nature. So now the text says, that without a nature of its own, because arising due to causes and conditions and therefore dependent on something else, is empty. And its emptiness makes it identical with the perfectly accomplished.
previous next Contents * Preface