入楞伽經

Volume Ten

CHAPTER EIGHTE: SUMMARY

II. Abiding through the sustaining power of all Buddhas

Pure are the powers of vows,

The conferral of rank and samadhi,

Merit and the Ten Grounds,

The hare’s horn and empty space,

And the barren woman’s child.

When the foregoing dharmas are discriminated,

They are empty, yet names are spoken of (self-designations).

Because of worldly perfuming,

They are neither existent nor nonexistent.

The “seeing subject” attains liberation

By comprehending “the selflessness of dharmas.”

Names discriminated as real entities,

And other entities, arise from causes.

I say that these are established;

The sutras constantly speak thus:

Individual expressions and collections of names...

Together with collections of names for supreme dharmas,

Are discriminated by the ignorant,

Like an elephant sinking into mud.

The vehicle of the devas and the vehicle of Brahma,

And the vehicle of the sravakas,

The Tathagata and the pratyekabuddhas—

Thus do I speak of the vehicles.

The vehicles cannot be exhausted;

When such a mind arises,

Even the mind’s turning and cessation do not exist:

There is no vehicle and none who rides.

The discriminating mind and consciousness,

Manas and mental consciousness,

The alaya of the three realms of existence—

These are different names for the thinking mind.

Life and warmth-consciousness (warmth: heat),

The life faculty and the alaya,

Manas and mental consciousness—

These are different discriminative names.

Mind sustains and abides within the body;

Manas continually apprehends all dharmas.

Consciousness discriminates its objects

Together with knowing that they are realms of one’s own mind.

I say that craving is the mother,

And ignorance is taken as the father;

Awareness cognizes the realms of experience,

And therefore is called Buddha.

The latent tendencies are enemies;

All compounded aggregates are the skandhas.

When continuity no longer abides,

Its severance is called uninterrupted liberation.

The afflictions of the twofold selflessness,

And the two kinds of selflessness,

Inconceivable transformations,

And freedom from birth and death—this is Buddha.

The essence of dharmas corresponding with manas

Is my Dharma within the inner body.

If one is able to see in this way,

One does not follow deluded cognition (false understanding).

In truth, nothing exists within the dharmas

As the ignorant discriminate.

Relying on delusion, where no dharma exists,

How could liberation be attained?

Bound by the conjunction of arising and cessation,

They perceive conditioned dharmas

And strengthen the two views,

Yet the law of causes and conditions is not lost.

The plantain tree, dreams, and illusions...

Such is the world.

Only one Dharma is real:

Nirvana, apart from mental consciousness.

There are craving and anger,

And delusion without a person (no person [?]).

From craving arise the skandhas;

The existence of the skandhas is likewise a dream.

On what night did I realize the Dharma?

On what night did I enter nirvana? (pass into cessation)

Between these two events,

I did not utter a single word.

Having realized the Dharma of the inner body,

I speak in reliance upon it.

Neither that Buddha nor my body

Has spoken the supreme Dharma.

The entity of a true self is held to exist,

Yet the five skandhas are devoid of that characteristic.

The essence of the skandhas truly exists,

But within those skandhas there is no self.

Each and every view is discriminated

In accordance with the afflictions and latent tendencies.

Realizing the world as one’s own mind,

One departs from suffering and attains liberation.

The various causes and conditions

From which the world thus arises

Correspond to four dharmas;

This does not accord with my teaching.

Dharmas are neither existent nor nonexistent in arising;

Apart from existence and nonexistence, they do not arise.

How can the ignorant discriminate them

As arising from causes and various conditions?

Apart from the four propositions of existence and nonexistence (?),

If one can perceive the world,

Then mind and consciousness are transformed,

And one immediately realizes the selflessness of dharmas.

All dharmas are originally unborn;

Therefore, they arise through causes and conditions.

The conditions themselves are the result,

And within the result existence arises.

Within the result two things arise;

There should therefore be two within the result.

Yet within the two there is no result,

And within the result no entity is seen.

Apart from the observer and the observed,

If conditioned dharmas are seen,

Apart from mind there is mind alone;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

Measure, real entity, and form

Are apart from the conditions of real entities.

The ultimate, supreme purity—

Thus do I speak of measure.

Just as “self” is a provisional designation

And no real dharma can be seen,

So too the skandhas and their essence

Are unreal, merely provisional names.

There are four kinds of equality:

Characteristics, causes, and arising,

And equality in selflessness—

These are the four dharmas of practitioners.

When all views,

The discriminating and the discriminated, are transformed,

There is neither seeing nor arising;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

There is no dharma, yet neither is there no dharma;

It is apart from the essence of existence and nonexistence.

Suchness is apart from mind;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

Suchness, emptiness, ultimate reality,

The dharmadhatu and nirvana,

The mind-born body and mind—

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

Discrimination relies upon perfuming,

Giving rise to many forms and many destinies.

The minds of sentient beings perceive an external world;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

No external entity is there to be seen;

Seeing mind, one sees manifold things

That nourish and sustain the body;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

All pratyekabuddhas

Arise without conjunction.

There are no external material characteristics;

One’s own mind perceives external dharmas.

Awakened knowing is within one’s own mind,

Yet the ignorant discriminate conditioned things.

The ignorant do not know that externally

Their own minds perceive manifold things.

As an expedient to restrain the ignorant,

There are four kinds of attachment to dharmas,

No-cause and non-discrimination,

And the five kinds of illustrative treatises.

To understand well the essence and form of one’s own mind

Is penetrating wisdom.

Relying on the discriminating and the discriminated,

Discrimination comes forth into manifestation.

Each separately combines;

This is a causal seed.

Borrowing two dharmas makes two;

Thus the minds of people do not arise.

The discriminating mind and mental dharmas

Abide within the two (three?) realms.

They manifest and arise as all dharmas,

But their essence is illusory.

Because causes, bases, and manifestations combine,

There are the twelve ayatanas.

When examined as combinations dependent upon causes,

I do not say that they are dharmas.

It is like seeing an image in a mirror,

Or diseased eyes seeing circles of hair.

What the minds of the ignorant perceive thus

Depends upon the mind’s perfuming.

Together, the discriminating and the discriminated

Give rise to discrimination.

As non-Buddhists discriminate,

There are no such external characteristics.

One who fails to recognize a rope

Takes it to be a snake.

Not understanding the meaning of one’s own mind,

One discriminates external dharmas.

Yet the Vehicle and the essence of the Vehicle

Are apart from either of these two.

To discriminate the Vehicle

Is the fault of one’s own mind.

Upon what dharma? In what manner?

Discrimination cannot be seen.

One cannot say that it is nonexistent;

Such is the essence of all dharmas.

Because a basis exists, should one say it does not exist?

Because a basis does not exist, should one say it exists?

Therefore, one must not say it is nonexistent,

Nor may one say it is existent.

This is merely discrimination discriminating;

It is not the essence of dharmas.

How can one perceive an absence of essence

And yet give rise to discrimination?

The essence of form has no material body,

Like a jar or white cloth...

What can be seen is an empty dharma;

How then could discrimination exist?

If discrimination is delusion,

And conditioned dharmas are beginningless,

By what dharma are sentient beings deluded?

This is what I, the Muni (Silent Sage), teach.

All dharmas and their essences are empty,

Yet it is said that there is mind-only.

Failing to see within one’s own mind,

One gives rise to discrimination.

If discrimination is nonexistent,

As the ignorant discriminate,

That dharma has no separate essence,

And wisdom cannot awaken to it.

If the noble ones possess that dharma,

It is not discriminated by ordinary beings.

If the noble ones falsely possess that dharma,

There would be no distinction between the noble and the ignorant.

The noble ones are free from delusion,

Because they have attained purity of mind.

The ignorant lack the mind of faith,

And therefore discriminate discrimination.

Just as a mother, for her children,

Brings forth fruits from empty space:

“Child, take these fruits; do not cry!”

The child takes the many kinds of fruit.

For sentient beings,

I distinguish many fruits (fruits of realization),

Teaching them in manifold ways

So that they may leave behind the aggregates of existence and nonexistence.

If originally there were no essential dharma,

Neither causeless nor arising from a cause,

Originally unborn yet first arising (the beginning of life),

Then neither would there be such a body.

Without a body, there is also no birth;

Apart from causes and conditions, there is no locus.

The essences of dharmas that arise and cease,

Apart from causes and conditions, have no locus.

When examined briefly in this manner,

There is neither existence nor nonexistence elsewhere.

Regarding dharmas born from causes and conditions,

The wise should not discriminate.

To see one essence or two essences

Is the teaching of ignorant non-Buddhists.

The world is like an illusion or dream;

It does not arise from causes and conditions.

Relying upon the realm of language,

I teach the unsurpassed Mahayana Dharma

According to the definitive meaning,

Yet the ignorant do not understand.

Non-Buddhists and sravakas

Teach the Dharma based on envy.

Their words do not correspond with the meaning,

For they speak on the basis of deluded cognition (false understanding).

Essential characteristics and formal characteristics

Are called the four kinds of dharmas.

Because dharmas are contemplated in this way,

Discrimination arises.

Discriminating one, two... and many,

They remain bound by Brahma.

The sun, the moon, and all the devas—

Such views are not my offspring.

The noble ones see the true Dharma

Through practice in accordance with reality;

They can transform illusory characteristics

And also transcend coming and going.

This is the seal of liberation

That I teach to the Buddha’s children:

Transcend the Dharma of existence and nonexistence,

And also transcend the characteristics of going and coming.

When the manifold forms of consciousness are transformed,

If all karma is extinguished,

One should speak neither of permanence nor impermanence;

No dharma arises in the world.

At the time of transformation, it should cease;

Form departs from that place.

Free from emptiness and error,

Karma abides in the alaya.

Form has the characteristic of extinction as its essence;

Existence within consciousness is likewise so.

Form and consciousness combine together,

Yet the various karmas are not lost.

If they combine together,

The karmas of sentient beings would be lost.

If the combination of karma were extinguished,

There would be neither bondage nor nirvana.

If beings and that were extinguished,

They would arise within the world.

Form also combines together;

Since there should be no distinction,

Neither separateness nor non-separateness exists;

It is only the mind’s discrimination.

The essence of all dharmas is not extinguished,

Apart from the factions of existence and nonexistence.

Dharmas provisionally named through causes and conditions

Mutually alternate without distinction.

Just as within the impermanence of form,

The various dharmas arise in mutual succession,

Apart from the characteristics of this and that,

Discriminative knowledge cannot apprehend them.

If there is nonexistence, how can existence be established?

Just as within the impermanence of form,

If one clearly sees discrimination,

Other-dependent nature does not arise.

Within the other-dependent Dharma,

Discrimination likewise does not arise.

If discrimination is extinguished,

Then self and dharmas are extinguished.

Those who fabricate within my Dharma

And also repudiate existence and nonexistence—

Those who slander the Dharma—

At what time do they exist?

They destroy my Dharma wheel;

One should not converse with them.

The wise do not converse with them,

Nor share the Dharma of bhiksus with them.

Having extinguished discrimination,

One departs from false views of existence and nonexistence,

Seeing things as illusions and circles made by a firebrand,

As dreams and cities of the gandharvas,

And also as flames…

Thus one sees existence and nonexistence.

Such a person does not understand the Buddha.

If anyone embraces that,

That person falls into the two extremes

And also brings ruin upon others.

One who knows the Dharma of quiescence

Is a true practitioner.

One who transcends the Dharma of existence and nonexistence

Should be accepted.

Just as there is a place that produces

Gold, silver, and precious treasures,

Without karma creating their many kinds,

Yet sentient beings receive and use them.

The true suchness of sentient beings

Does not exist because of karma;

Because it is unseen, karma is nonexistent.

Nor is it produced by performed karma.

Dharmas have no intrinsic essence,

As the noble ones discern;

Yet dharmas exist

As the deluded discriminate them.

If dharmas were not so,

As the deluded discriminate them,

Then no dharmas whatsoever would exist,

And sentient beings would not be defiled.

All dharmas exist in dependence upon mind;

The afflictions are likewise so.

Birth and death throughout the worlds

Turn in accordance with the faculties.

Through the conjunction of craving and ignorance,

The various bodies are produced.

Other persons constantly regard non-dharma

As the deluded discriminate it.

If persons and dharmas do not arise,

Practitioners do not perceive the faculties.

If all dharmas are empty,

Yet can act as causes in the world,

The foolish would be free from action

And should be liberated spontaneously.

There would be no distinction between fools and noble ones;

How then could existence and nonexistence be established?

The noble ones have no intrinsic essence

Because they cultivate the three liberations.

The five skandhas and the dharmas of persons

Have characteristics both alike and different.

Causes, conditions, and faculties

I teach for the sravakas;

Causelessness, mind-only,

Subtle matters and the various bhumis,

True suchness and the purification of the inner body—

These I teach for the Buddha’s children.

In the future age there will be people

Who repudiate my Dharma wheel;

Their bodies will be clad in kasayas,

Yet they will speak of dharmas as existent or nonexistent.

The existence of dharmas through causes and conditions

Is the domain of the noble ones;

Discrimination has no intrinsic essence—

It belongs to those who falsely distinguish through deluded awareness.

In the future age there will be

Foolish people who eat chaff;

With causeless and erroneous views,

They will bring ruin upon the people of the world.

They say the world arises from atoms,

While atoms have no cause;

The nine kinds of substances are permanent—

Thus do their false views proclaim.

Substance produces substance,

And qualities produce qualities;

This dharma differs from that dharma—

Discrimination is their essence.

If there were originally beginningless production,

The world should have a root.

I declare that within the world

No primal beginning can be found.

Sentient beings throughout the three realms

Have arisen from beginningless time;

Then dogs, camels, and hornless donkeys

Should surely produce horns, without doubt.

If the eye has existed from beginningless time,

Form and consciousness must likewise be so;

Mats, crowns, cloth, and so forth

Should then arise from mud.

There is no jar within cloth,

Nor cloth within rushes.

If one truly existed within another,

Why would it not arise from that cause?

That life itself is the body

Is a doctrine arising from beginningless time.

Others proclaim this teaching,

But I teach that all dharmas are otherwise.

I thoroughly understand the Dharma of causes and conditions,

And only afterward refute the doctrines of others.

I refute those people of erroneous views,

And afterward teach my own Dharma.

Having comprehended the doctrines of non-Buddhists,

I afterward proclaim the true Dharma.

Fearing that disciples might become confused,

I establish the teaching of existence and nonexistence.

From the Supreme Person came forth

The ill-intentioned Kapila,

Who taught his disciples

The transformations of the qualities.

Neither real nor unreal,

Neither arising from conditions nor themselves conditions;

Because causes and conditions are absent,

Unreal dharmas do not arise.

Transcending the Dharma of existence and nonexistence,

Apart from causes and also apart from conditions,

Transcending the Dharma of arising and cessation,

One’s own Dharma is beyond what can be seen.

The world is like an illusion or dream,

Apart from all dharmas of causes and conditions.

When causes and conditions are posited, perception arises;

Therefore discrimination is produced.

Like birds and beasts craving water,

Like cities of the gandharvas and circles made by a firebrand,

It is apart from the Dharma of existence and nonexistence,

Apart from causes and apart from conditions.

Seeing the three realms as causeless—

Thus does the purified mind see.

Those for whom there are no external objects

Perceive only what is within the mind.

If one departs far from the objects of mind,

One cannot speak of mind-only.

If external objects are observed

And sentient beings arise within the mind,

How could the mind be free of objects?

One cannot speak of mind-only!

True suchness exists only in mind.

Whoever denies the Dharma of the noble ones,

Whether asserting existence or nonexistence,

Does not understand my Dharma.

If the apprehender and the apprehended

Arise in the mind in this way,

This is the worldly mind;

One should not call it mind-only.

If the provisions that nourish and sustain the body

Arise as they do within a dream,

There should be two kinds of mind,

Yet mind has no dual characteristic!

Just as a knife does not cut itself

And a finger does not point to itself,

So mind does not see itself;

This matter is likewise so.

Neither through another nor through causes and conditions

Does discrimination discriminate its objects.

The five dharmas and the two minds

Are not so in quiescence.

The producer and the produced,

And the characteristics of these two dharmas—

My intention is that there is no producer;

I teach that dharmas have no intrinsic characteristics.

If the manifold essences, characteristics, and forms

Were produced by discrimination,

Then a rabbit’s horns, empty space, and so forth

Should also be produced as entities.

If the characteristics of dharmas existed,

There should be external objects.

Because there is no external discrimination,

Apart from mind there are no dharmas.

Within the beginningless world,

No external dharmas exist.

Because mind has no cause of production,

Yet external objects are perceived.

If growth occurred without a cause,

A rabbit’s horns should also arise.

Since there is no causeless growth,

How could discrimination arise?

Just as no dharma exists in the present,

So too none existed before.

If entities cannot combine,

How could mind arise?

True suchness, emptiness, the ultimate limit,

The dharmadhatu, and nirvana—

The arising of all dharmas

Is the Dharma of ultimate meaning.

Ordinary beings fall into existence and nonexistence,

Discriminating causes and conditions.

What is without a cause has never arisen;

They do not understand this within the three realms.

The mind perceives what can be seen

Because of beginningless divergent views.

Beginningless dharmas also do not exist;

How, then, can one perceive another arising?

If there is no object capable of producing,

The poor should possess abundant wealth.

How can nonexistent things arise?

O Muni, please explain this for me!

All this is without mind,

Yet the various dharmas are not nonexistent.

Dreams, illusions, and cities of the gandharvas—

These dharmas appear without causes.

Without essential characteristics and without arising—

Please teach me this Dharma!

To transcend compounded dharmas

Is not to perceive any dharma.

Then there is neither nonexistence nor non-arising;

I teach that dharmas have no characteristics.

Dreams, illusions, circles made by a firebrand,

Cities of the gandharvas, mirages, and so forth

Are seen to exist without causes;

The dharmas of the world are likewise so.

Thus, when the single combination

Is transcended, nothing perceptible remains.

It is not what the non-Buddhist paths perceive;

Conjunction is not thus.

Those subdued rely on no cause,

Accomplishing non-arising.

If they can accomplish non-arising,

Then my Dharma wheel shall not perish.

When the mark of causelessness is taught,

Followers of non-Buddhist paths become afraid:

How is it so? For whom is it so?

Whence do all dharmas come?

Where are dharmas born?

Dharmas arise without a cause.

They arise within causelessness,

Yet abide in neither of the two causes.

If one endowed with wisdom sees this,

Then wrong views are overturned.

To say that all dharmas arise,

And that non-arising means there is nothing—

By contemplating all causes and conditions,

Such wrong views are then overturned.

Because a dharma exists, it has a name;

Because no dharma exists, it has no name.

Yet no dharma fails to arise,

Nor does it await causes and conditions.

It is called non-dependence upon dharmas,

Yet it is not called nonexistence of substance.

This is not the realm of shravakas,

Pratyekabuddhas, or non-Buddhist paths.

Bodhisattvas dwelling on the Seventh Ground—

For them this is the mark of non-arising.

They turn within the dharmas of causes and conditions,

And thus comprehend the meaning of causation.

Because I teach only dependence upon mind,

I therefore speak of non-arising.

No cause gives rise to dharmas;

They are apart from discriminating discrimination,

Apart from establishing existence and nonexistence;

Therefore, I speak of non-arising.

When mind is free from what can be seen,

And also free from duality,

It turns away from dharmas that serve as supports;

Therefore, I speak of non-arising.

It neither destroys the substance of external dharmas,

Nor grasps the inner mind;

It is free from all wrong views—

This is the mark of non-arising.

Thus should emptiness and signlessness

All be carefully examined.

It is not that arising is empty or that dharmas are absent;

What is originally unborn is emptiness.

All causes and conditions conjoin,

Bringing both cessation and arising.

Apart from conjoined dharmas,

There is neither cessation nor arising.

If one departs from conjoined dharmas,

No real substance of dharmas remains.

Unity and difference

Are separately discriminated by non-Buddhist paths.

Existence and nonexistence do not give rise to dharmas;

Neither real arising nor non-arising exists.

When all causes and conditions are left behind,

Both arising and non-arising

Exist only as names—

Here and there, all are links in a chain.

Ultimately, there is no substance capable of arising;

The distinctions of causes and conditions are links.

Apart from what can arise, there is non-arising;

This is freedom from all non-Buddhist paths.

I say that they are only links,

Yet ordinary beings do not understand;

Apart from these links, there is no distinct

Substance of dharmas capable of arising.

One who says there is no cause

Destroys and ruins all the links.

Just as objects are revealed by a lamp,

So too should the links be clearly understood.

If some distinct dharma existed

Apart from the substance of the chain of links,

It would neither arise nor possess substance;

Its self-nature would be like empty space.

Apart from the dharmas that form the links,

The ignorant make other discriminations.

This is the non-arising of difference,

The Dharma realized by noble ones.

That dharma neither arises nor does not arise;

Not arising is non-arising.

If one sees all worlds,

They exist by virtue of links.

What links the worlds together?

Then the mind attains samadhi.

Craving, karma, and ignorance...

Are the links among internal dharmas;

A garland, a lump of clay, a wheel...

And the four great elements are external dharmas.

To depend upon another substantial dharma

Is to arise from causes and conditions;

Yet there is not merely the substance of the links,

Nor does it accord with the measure of the Agamas.

If there is no dharma capable of arising,

What cognitive dharma could be its cause?

Those dharmas arise together;

They are not causes and conditions.

Heat, moisture, motion, and solidity

Are dharmas discriminated by the ignorant.

Within these links there is no dharma;

Therefore, their substantial marks are empty.

Just as a physician, according to an illness,

Prescribes distinct methods of treatment,

Though the treatise itself is not different,

Its applications differ according to the illness.

According to the bodies of sentient beings,

I speak of the defilements of affliction.

Knowing their various powers and faculties,

I teach for the sake of the ignorant.

Though afflictions and faculties differ,

My teaching is not different.

I have but a single vehicle:

The cooling Noble Eightfold Path.

A jar, cloth, a cap, and a horn...

A rabbit’s horn is not a cause.

Nothing arises in dependence upon a non-cause,

And that dharma has no cause.

Yet that dharma is empty—

You must not grasp emptiness!

Nonexistence is established in dependence upon an existing cause;

Dependence upon nonexistence is incoherent.

Existence in relation to nonexistence

Is a dharma established through mutual dependence.

If a lesser dharma exists dependently,

Then a lesser existing dharma is perceived.

Seeing a lesser dharma without a cause,

The lesser dharma itself becomes causeless.

If it proceeds in dependence upon another dharma,

Then this and that are perceived together.

Thus the error continues without end,

And even the lesser has no lesser substance.

Depending upon colors, trees, and so forth,

Visible dharmas appear like illusions.

Thus, according to their supporting conditions,

People perceive manifold things.

The illusionist is neither color...

Nor is he stone or wood.

The ignorant see things as illusions,

Depending upon an illusory body.

If, depending upon reality,

One perceives even the slightest thing,

Then when one sees dharmas as nondual,

How could one perceive the slightest thing?

Discrimination and non-discrimination—

Yet it is not non-discrimination.

If discrimination is not a dharma,

There is neither bondage nor liberation.

Because discrimination is not a dharma,

Discrimination therefore does not arise.

If discrimination does not arise,

One cannot speak of mind-only!

The manifold distinctions of mind—

Among dharmas, no dharma is real.

Because dharmas are not real,

There is no liberation from the world.

There is no external object that can be seen;

The foolish falsely discriminate.

Like images appearing within a mirror,

The mind is deluded by causal perfuming.

All dharmas do not arise;

Though nonexistent, they appear to arise.

All of this is mind-only,

Apart from every discrimination.

To say that dharmas arise from causes

Is the teaching of the ignorant, not the wise.

Real substance is apart from mind;

The mind of a noble one is pure.

Followers of Samkhya and Vaisheshika,

Naked ascetics and brahmins,

And even Ishvara

Follow false views devoid of truth.

There is neither arising nor substance;

Undefiled, all is empty like an illusion.

Why do the Buddhas teach this?

For whom does the Buddha speak?

For practitioners who are pure

And free from the wrong views of initial and sustained thought.

The Buddhas teach the true Dharma;

I too teach in this way.

If everything is mind-only,

Where does the world abide?

Upon what dharma do past and future depend?

How are they seen upon the earth?

Like a bird in empty space,

Flying onward in dependence upon the wind,

Neither abiding nor examining,

Yet moving above the earth,

So too do sentient beings,

Driven by the wind of discrimination,

Come and go within their own minds,

Like birds flying through the sky.

They see possessions that sustain the body;

The Buddha says that mind is thus.

How can the manifest cause be seen?

Teach me mind-only!

The sustenance that maintains the body

Is manifestly seen to arise through perfuming.

Without cultivation, there is arising;

What is manifestly seen gives rise to discrimination.

The substance of discrimination is its objective realm;

Mind arises in dependence upon that realm.

When one knows what mind makes visible,

Discrimination no longer arises.

If one can perceive discrimination,

One is free from perceiver and perceived.

When a name does not correspond to its designation,

That is called a conditioned dharma.

This is only what can be cognized;

The name is not separate from the mark of the designation.

Abiding and knowability are left behind—

This is called a conditioned dharma.

This is only what can be cognized;

Within a name, the name is not separate.

If a person cognizes something else,

It is neither self-cognition nor cognition by another.

The fundamental reality of the five dharmas,

Together with the eight kinds of consciousness

And the two kinds of no-self,

Are encompassed within the Mahayana.

If one sees the knower and the knowable,

And serenely beholds the world,

Discrimination of names within names

Will then no longer arise.

Creating and discriminating names,

Upon seeing this, it no longer arises.

Because one does not see one’s own mind,

Discrimination therefore arises.

The marks of the four skandhas are empty;

Thus there is no nature of dharmas.

How, then, are there manifold forms?

The four great elements have different, distinct marks.

Abandon all marks of dharmas;

There are neither great elements nor what pertains to them.

If there are other marks of form,

How could the skandhas not arise?

If one sees marks in this way,

One does not see the skandhas and ayatanas.

Depending upon objects, faculties, and consciousness,

The eight kinds of consciousness arise.

Depending upon marks, there are three kinds;

In tranquility it is not so.

Alaya, manas, and self,

What belongs to self, and also cognition.

Because of grasping these two dharmas,

When those dharmas are known, they immediately cease.

Free from this dharma and that,

If one sees that they are not separate from each other,

The world is only discrimination by mind—

Blessed One, please explain this for me!

No longer discriminating the two,

Self and what belongs to self,

One does not increase discrimination,

Nor is there a cause for mental consciousness.

Apart from causes and conditions,

It is neither an object nor an arising.

Discrimination is only mind—

Blessed One, please explain this for me!

—Free from all causes and conditions,

Free from seer and seen,

One sees the manifold forms of one’s own mind;

What appears is falsely discriminated.

Not knowing that what is seen is one’s own mind,

One does not awaken to the meaning of mind as other.

Not seeing wrong views come to be.

If they are not seen by wisdom,

Why then are they not nonexistent?

That person’s mind grasps existence,

Discriminating neither existence nor nonexistence;

Therefore, a mind of existence does not arise.

Not knowing that what is seen is mind-only,

Therefore, discrimination arises.

To discriminate non-discrimination

Is cessation accomplished without a cause.

The four kinds of factions are refuted

If all dharmas have causes.

This differs in characteristics and names;

That person’s assertion cannot be established.

Thus, other things should arise from themselves;

If not so, they should arise from causes.

Through causes and conditions, there is conjunction.

By refuting that dharmas arise from causes,

I prevent the fault of eternalism,

If all conditions are impermanent.

They neither arise nor cease;

The ignorant perceive impermanence.

When the characteristics cease, no dharma remains;

Not seeing a causal agent,

They therefore hold that impermanence comes into existence.

How can people fail to see this?

I gather in sentient beings,

Relying on moral discipline to subdue

Wrong views, and on wisdom to extinguish them,

Relying on liberation to increase greatly.

All worldly doctrines

Spoken falsely by non-Buddhists,

Relying upon wrong views of cause and effect,

Cannot establish their own Dharma.

Only when one’s own Dharma is established,

Apart from the fruits of causes and conditions,

Can one tell all one’s disciples

To leave worldly conventions behind.

Only mind can be seen; nothing else exists.

Mind sees in two ways.

Apart from the grasped and the grasper,

One also departs from annihilationism and eternalism.

Only mind moves and turns;

All this is worldly Dharma.

It no longer arises or turns

When one sees the world as one’s own mind.

Coming is the event of arising;

Going is the event of cessation.

Knowing going and coming as they truly are,

Discrimination does not arise again.

Permanence, impermanence, and agency;

Neither that nor this is produced.

Thus, all of these

Are worldly dharmas.

Devas, humans, asuras,

Animals, ghosts, and yamas—

When sentient beings leave that place,

I say they go among the six paths.

According to superior, middling, and inferior karmic causes,

They are able to be born in those places.

Those who skillfully guard wholesome dharmas

Attain liberation, the supreme state.

– The Buddha taught arising from moment to moment,

Samsara and also retrogression.

For the assembly of bhiksus, he taught this;

For what purpose did you teach it to me?

The mind does not reach a second moment;

Once extinguished, it does not continue.

For my disciples, I taught

That moments successively cease and arise.

The discrimination of form as form exists;

Arising and cessation are immediately completed.

Discrimination itself is the person;

Apart from discrimination, there is no person.

I taught the Dharma of momentariness;

Relying upon my words, bring it to completion.

Apart from grasping the characteristics of form,

There is neither cessation nor arising.

Causes and conditions arise from conditions,

As do ignorance and suchness...

If arising depends upon these two dharmas,

Suchness has no substantial essence.

Causes and conditions arise from conditions;

If so, there is no other dharma.

If an effect arises from the Permanent,

The effect itself would be the cause and condition.

This would not differ from the non-Buddhists,

For cause and effect would intermingle.

The Buddha and all Buddhas proclaim

That the Great Muni is no different.

Within this fathom-long body

Are the truth of suffering and the truth of its origin,

The truth of cessation and the truth of the path.

For all my disciples,

If the three are taken as real,

There arise the wrong views of grasping and the grasped.

Supramundane and worldly dharmas

Are discriminated by ordinary people.

I comprehend another Dharma;

Therefore, I teach three dharmas.

To prevent those wrong views,

Do not discriminate a real essence.

I teach the fault that dharmas are indeterminate,

And also that no mind arises.

Reality also admits no dual grasping;

Suchness is not of two kinds.

Craving, karma, and ignorance,

Together with consciousness and the rest, arise from falsity.

Endless faults are not created;

The four kinds of cessation of dharmas

Are the words of the unwise.

Two kinds of discrimination arise:

That things exist and that things do not exist.

Depart from the four kinds of dharmas,

And also depart from the four kinds of views.

When the two kinds of discrimination arise,

Seeing no longer arises.

Dharmas are originally unborn;

Differentiating wisdom arises.

Dharmas presently arise,

Yet are equal and without discrimination.

I beseech the Muni,

For my sake and for the sake of all,

To teach in accordance with the Dharma,

Apart from the two kinds and the two views!

– I am apart from wrong views,

As are all other bodhisattvas.

We never perceive existence or nonexistence,

Because we do not perceive those dharmas.

We are apart from the admixture of non-Buddhist doctrines,

Apart from pratyekabuddhas and sravakas.

The Buddha realized the Dharma of all noble ones;

Please teach it to me without omission.

Inverted causes and absence of cause,

Non-arising and all things,

The various names of delusion and confusion—

The wise have left them far behind.

Like clouds, rain, and towers,

Palaces, pavilions, and rainbows,

Flames, hairs before the eyes, and illusions,

Existence and nonexistence arise from mind.

Non-Buddhists discriminate

That the world arises from causes.

Suchness, the unborn Dharma,

And the ultimate reality of emptiness...

These are different names for dharmas;

Do not discriminate that nothing exists.

Regarding the various forms,

Do not discriminate that no dharmas exist.

Like nails and hands, the world,

The sovereign, the capable, and that which destroys things—

So it is with all dharmas:

Do not discriminate that no dharmas exist.

Apart from form, emptiness is not different;

Nor does the essence of any dharma arise.

Do not discriminate them as different;

Such prior discrimination is a wrong view.

Discrimination and the discriminated

Encompass all phenomena.

Long and short, square and round...

Are characteristics encompassed by discrimination.

Discrimination is a dharma of mind;

The discriminated belongs to mentation.

If one can know in accordance with Dharma,

One departs from the characterizer and the characterized.

Non-Buddhists speak of non-arising

And grasp at self and dharmas.

To discriminate characteristics in this way—

These two views are not mistaken.

Why is it said thus?

If one can know in this way,

That person enters into proper measure

And can understand the Dharma I teach.

Seeing causes is attachment;

Non-arising is nondependence.

Knowing the meaning of these two,

I therefore teach the unborn.

– All dharmas are without arising;

Muni, please teach this to me!

– Absence of cause is not commensurate;

No existent dharma is intermingled.

Without a cause, there is also no arising;

A different cause is the view of non-Buddhists.

Apart from existence and nonexistence, there is no dharma;

Therefore, I teach mind-only.

Arising and non-arising

Apart from dharmas are wrong views.

To speak of nonexistence is to say that no cause gives rise;

To speak of existence is to cling to a cause.

Spontaneity without an agent,

And belief in an agent, are wrong views.

– Skillful means and vows...

Please teach this view to me!

If all dharmas are empty,

How can the three times arise?

Apart from the grasped and the grasper,

There is neither cessation nor arising.

Seeing one thing from another thing,

The mind arises in dependence upon that dharma.

Dharmas do not arise through transformation;

How will you explain this to me?

– They truly exist, but are not known;

Therefore, I teach the Dharma!

– Muni, among all dharmas,

Earlier and later mutually bind themselves.

Apart from the faults of the non-Buddhists,

Apart from inverted causes,

Arising and non-arising—

Great Teacher, please explain them to me!

– Apart from existence and nonexistence,

Cause and effect are not lost.

The stages and their sequence

Are taught as empty of a single characteristic.

The world falls into the two extremes

Because it is deluded by various views.

From non-arising arises the unborn;

They do not know the cause of quiescent cessation.

I have no dharmas of the three times.

Nor do I teach dharmas thus.

Where there are two, there is error;

All Buddhas purify both.

All dharmas, emptiness, and the momentary

Neither arise nor possess substance.

To teach false dharmas that obscure the mind

Is the discrimination of one who is not a Tathagata.

– Arising and non-arising—

I beseech you to explain them to me!

How is it? What dharmas

Are apart from the realm of arising?

– Form is fully formed by conjunction,

Accumulated from conceptual proliferation.

The aggregation of external characteristics of form

Arises from discrimination.

When one comes to know that Dharma,

One thus understands the true meaning.

Following the nature of the noble ones,

The mind does not arise again.

Apart from all the great elements,

The arising of dharmas is not applicable.

The deluded mind contemplates the great elements.

Contemplate non-arising in this way;

Do not discriminate the discriminated.

The wise do not discriminate.

Discrimination and the discriminated—

In neither is there nirvana.

Established in the unborn Dharma,

One sees no dharma, as with an illusion.

Arising from the causes of illusion...

Once established, all dharmas are refuted.

See mind as an image in a mirror,

Conditioned by beginningless perfuming.

It resembles meaning, yet has no meaning;

Contemplate all dharmas likewise.

Like an image of form in a mirror,

It is apart from the characteristics of one and two.

What can be seen is neither nonexistent nor not nonexistent;

All characteristics are likewise.

Illusions, cities of the gandharvas...

Are contemplated in dependence upon causes and conditions.

Thus is the essence of all dharmas:

Dharmas arise, yet are not non-arising;

Discrimination resembles a person.

The two kinds of characteristics appear.

Speaking of self and dharmas,

Yet foolish people do not understand;

They are contradictory and causeless.

Sravakas and arhats,

Those self-attained and those aided by Buddha-power:

These are the five kinds of Sravakas.

Gathering in and cessation,

The foremost and freedom from the foremost:

These are the four kinds of impermanence,

Discriminated by the foolish and ignorant.

The deluded fall into the two extremes,

Regarding qualities and minute particles;

They do not know the cause of liberation,

Because they cling to dharmas as existent or nonexistent.

Just as a foolish person

Takes the pointing finger to be the moon,

So do they delight in names and words,

Not knowing my true Dharma.

The great elements each have distinct characteristics;

Form arises from what has no form-characteristic.

Yet when the great elements combine,

There is no element and nothing upon which an element depends.

Fire burns all forms;

Water causes things to dissolve;

Wind sets all forms in motion—

How, then, could the characteristics of the elements arise?

The skandha of form together with consciousness

Are two dharmas, not five (?);

They are merely different names for the skandhas,

As I have taught, like Sakra.

Mind and mental factors differ;

As they manifest and turn, all dharmas arise.

The four great elements are each distinct,

And form and mind do not depend upon one another.

Depending upon blue, there is white;

Depending upon white, there is blue.

Depending upon a cause, a result can arise:

Nonexistence, existence, and nonexistence.

The agent, the act that can be done,

Cold and heat, seeing and views about seeing—

All such things

Cannot be established by deluded cognition.

Mind, manas, and the six

Consciousnesses combine together;

Apart from identity and difference,

Illusory samsara arises.

The Samkhyas and Vaisesikas,

The naked ascetics and Isvara worshipers,

Fall into factions of existence and nonexistence,

Departing from the meaning of quiescence.

Shape, appearance, and superiority arise;

The four elements produce what is not dust.

Thus non-Buddhists speak of the arising

Of the four elements and the four kinds of dust.

As for the rest, there is no place of arising;

Non-Buddhists discriminate a cause,

But in their delusion do not awaken,

Because they rely on factions of existence and nonexistence.

At birth, mind is conjoined with it;

At death, it is not conjoined with it.

The pure reality-characteristic of dharmas

Abides conjoined with shared wisdom.

Karma together with the characteristics of form

Is the cause of the realm of the five skandhas.

Sentient beings have no causal substance

That abides in the Formless Realm.

The Buddha teaches the Dharma of no-self;

Regarding the formless, this accords with non-Buddhists.

To say that no-self is annihilation

Would mean consciousness should not arise either.

Mind has four kinds of abiding;

How could it abide in the formless?

Among the external and internal characteristics of dharmas,

Consciousness cannot function.

Deluded cognition reckons them as existent;

The intermediate existence has five skandhas.

Thus the formless arises,

Existing yet being formless.

If liberation occurred spontaneously,

There would be neither sentient beings nor consciousness.

Non-Buddhists have no doubt of this,

But deluded cognition cannot understand it.

If it abides in the formless,

Then one should perceive the formless.

There, neither nonexistence nor a non-established dharma exists.

It is neither a vehicle nor the absence of a vehicle.

Consciousness arises from seeds,

Together with the faculties in combination.

Of the eight kinds of form, one part

Is not apprehended at the moment of thought.

Form does not abide through time;

One faculty does not abide together with another.

Therefore the Tathagata teaches

That the faculties do not abide even for a thought-moment.

If the substance of form is not perceived,

How could consciousness discriminate it?

If cognition did not arise,

How could the world arise?

To arise and immediately cease—

The Buddha did not teach it thus.

Nor does it cognize all at once;

Illusory discrimination apprehends

Objects and the faculties—

This is delusion, not wisdom.

Fools hear names and apprehend them;

Those who know reality as it is are sages.

The sixth (?) has no support,

Because there is no cause that can be apprehended.

Failing to understand the self well,

They do not escape the fault of asserting dharmas as existent.

Fools abide in existence and nonexistence;

The awakened depart from them through true wisdom.

Self, conditioned and unconditioned—

The deluded cannot understand.

Within one, a dharma is posited;

Within another, it is likewise.

Within mind, there is one common substance;

Mental consciousness is able to cognize.

If what is posited is the mind,

“Mental factors” is merely a name.

How can one depart from the apprehending subject

While discriminating identity and difference,

Seeing a common cause and support,

Karma, birth, and the performance of karma?

As with fire, so it is taught:

Similar dharmas resemble one another.

While fire endures for a time,

What can be burned and what burns are distinct.

In the same way, the self depends upon causes;

Why should deluded cognition not be likewise?

Arising and non-arising coexist,

Yet mind is always pure.

Deluded cognition establishes a self;

Why is no analogy given?

Lost in the dense forest of consciousness,

It departs from the true reality of dharmas.

Deluded cognition runs east and west;

The search for the spirit-self is likewise.

Cultivating true practice within oneself,

The self is characterized by purity.

The Buddha’s realm, the Tathagatagarbha,

Is not the realm of deluded cognition.

The apprehended and the apprehender

Differentiate the self of the five skandhas.

If one can understand its characteristics,

Then true wisdom arises.

Non-Buddhists speak of mental consciousness

As the substance of the alaya storehouse,

Conjoined together with the self;

The Dharma I teach is not like this.

If one knows dharmas as they truly are,

One will certainly attain liberation.

Cultivating until one reaches the path of seeing,

One severs the afflictions and becomes pure.

The intrinsic nature of mind is pure;

The Tathagata’s pure Dharma-body

Is the Dharma upon which sentient beings arise,

Free from finitude and infinitude.

As gold is associated with its color,

And the nature of ore with genuine gold,

One skilled in refining can discern them;

So it is with sentient beings and the skandhas.

Neither a skandha nor a person,

The Buddha is uncontaminated wisdom.

The uncontaminated Blessed One is eternal;

Therefore I take refuge in him.

The intrinsic nature of mind is pure;

Mental activity and troubling afflictions

Are conjoined with the five skandhas—

So teaches the supreme speaker.

The intrinsic nature of mind is pure;

Mental activity is precisely the condition.

It can produce all karma;

Therefore there are these two kinds of defilement.

Mental activity is an adventitious dharma;

Though afflicted, the self is pure.

It is defiled in dependence upon afflictions,

As grime depends upon what is clean.

As a garment is freed from dirt,

And as gold is freed from impurities,

It exists though it cannot be seen;

So is the self when freed from faults.

As a lute and a leather drum

Produce many kinds of exquisite sounds,

So is the self within the skandhas;

The deluded seek it as identical or different.

Within the earth are stores of jewels,

And there is pure water;

So is the self within the skandhas:

It truly exists but cannot be seen.

Mind and the dharmas of mental factors,

Qualities, and skandhas combine;

So is the self within the skandhas,

But those without wisdom cannot see it.

As an embryo within a woman’s womb,

Though it exists, cannot be seen,

So the self within the five skandhas

Is unseen by those without wisdom.

Within all dharmas

Are impermanence and emptiness;

So is the self within the skandhas:

It exists, but the ignorant do not see it.

The bhumis, mastery, and superknowledges,

Together with the attainment of rank,

All unsurpassed wondrous dharmas,

The various samadhis,

And the supreme realms—

If there were no self within the skandhas,

Then all these dharmas

Would likewise not exist.

Someone may object, saying:

“If it exists, then show the self!”

The wise should reply:

“Then you should show your mind!”

To say that the true-suchness self does not exist

Is merely an illusory assertion.

A karma-performing bhiksu

Should not associate with

Those who establish existence or nonexistence,

Following either of the two factions

And destroying the Dharma of the Buddhas;

Such people do not abide in my Dharma.

Free from the faults of non-Buddhists,

Burn away the view of no-self,

And cause the view of self to blaze forth

Like the fire at the end of an aeon.

As grapes, sugar loaves,

Milk, oil, ghee, and curds—

Each has its own distinct flavor,

Which one who has not tasted cannot know.

Within the five appropriated

Skandhas, the self is likewise.

The deluded do not see it;

Those with wisdom see it and attain liberation.

Though analogies make it clear,

The dharma of mind cannot be seen.

Where is it? Through what cause and condition?

Why can it not be seen in the combination?

Dharmas differ in substance and characteristics;

A single mind cannot employ them.

Without a cause, there is no arising—

This is the fault of those with deluded cognition.

Practitioners of reality perceive mind,

Yet within mind they do not see mind.

The visible arises from seeing;

From what cause does the seer arise?

I am of the Katyayana clan,

Manifesting from the Suddhavasa Heaven,

Teaching the Dharma for sentient beings

And proceeding to the city of nirvana.

This is the path of the past,

Followed by me and those Buddhas.

Three thousand sutras

Teach the Dharma of nirvana.

In the Desire Realm and the Formless Realm,

A Buddha does not attain Buddhahood.

Ascending to heaven in the Form Realm,

Free from desire, he attains bodhi.

The realm is not bound by a person;

A person is bound by the realm.

Relying on wisdom, one severs the afflictions;

Cultivation is a keen-edged sword.

There is a self, and there are illusions—

How, then, can dharmas be existent or nonexistent?

The foolish do not see it thus;

How could there be non-self?

Because of action and non-action,

They turn and arise without a cause.

All dharmas are unborn,

Yet the foolish do not awaken and know.

Causes cannot produce;

Conditions likewise do not act.

Since neither of these can produce,

How can conditions be discriminated?

Before, after, and simultaneously—

Deluded cognition calls these causes.

Space, a jar, a disciple...

All things arise.

The Buddha is not something made or conditioned;

His marks and their adornments

Are the merits of a wheel-turning king,

But these do not earn the name of Buddha.

The Buddhas have wisdom as their characteristic,

And are free from the faults of wrong views.

Within their own bodies is wisdom and vision,

Free from every fault.

The deaf, the blind, and the mute,

The old and young who consort with evil persons—

All persons such as these

Are said to lack pure conduct.

A vast and supremely wondrous embodiment

Is the mark of a wheel-turning king.

Renunciation may be of one or two kinds (?),

While the rest is heedlessness.

Vyasa Kaṇa,

And also Rishabha,

Kapila and Shakya—

After my passing into nirvana,

In the future age

Such persons will appear.

A hundred years after my passing,

Vyasa and the Vedas,

Together with Pandava

And Kaurava Shira.

Afterward, others will again appear,

And all will dwell among the Mauryas.

There will be the Maurya Gupta;

Next will come an unrighteous king.

Thereafter will be the turmoil of swords;

After the swords will come the final age.

Then, in the final age,

There will be neither Dharma nor practice.

Thus it will continue to pass,

As the world revolves in cycles.

The sun and fire will unite,

Burning and dissolving the Realm of Desire.

Then a wondrous world will form again,

And the inhabited world will arise:

Kings and the four castes, Dharma and the seers,

Offerings and great assemblies of giving—

The Dharma will return as before.

Originally there were thus discourses,

Prose passages and subsidiary commentaries;

The subsidiary commentaries were then composed anew, based on what already existed,

With immeasurable varieties of teachings.

“Thus have I heard”...

The worlds become enamored,

Not knowing the Dharma of true suchness;

What then is right, and what is wrong?

Robes dyed according to the Dharma,

Washed and beaten until clean,

With cow dung, clay, and so forth,

Their bright color subdued before they are used.

Perfumes applied to the body and robes

Are apart from the marks of non-Buddhist paths.

The Dharma wheel that I set in motion

Bears the marks of the Tathagatas.

Do not drink water that has not been strained.

A belt and undergarment

Are relied upon when going for alms;

Stay away from the houses of bandits.

One is born in wondrous heavenly realms,

Or in excellent stations among humankind.

Accomplished in all precious marks,

One is sovereign among humans and devas.

Those who practice in accordance with the Dharma

Are born as devas ruling the four continents;

For a long time they enjoy such rewards,

But through attachment they decline again.

The true age, the three calamities,

And the two evil ages—

My own age was still a true age,

But Shakyamuni came in the final age,

Siddhartha of the Shakya clan.

The Eight-Armed One and Ishvara—

Such non-Buddhist teachers

Will appear after my passing.

Thus have I heard...

The Lion of the Shakyas said:

“Such events once occurred”;

These are the words of Vyasa.

The eight-armed Narayana

And Maheshvara

Spoke these words:

“I transform myself into the world.

My mother is named Good Fortune;

My father is named King Brahma.

My clan is Katyayana,

And I am free from all afflictions.

I was born in the city of Champa.

My father and my grandfather—

My father is named Moon-Protected,

Born together from the Moon.

I left home to cultivate true conduct,

Proclaiming a thousand kinds of phrases.

Receiving the prediction of nirvana,

I entrusted wisdom and turned the Dharma wheel.”

Mahamati together with Dharma-Victory;

Victory together with Mikhali;

Mikha had no disciples,

And after a time the Dharma perished.

Kashyapa, Krakucchanda,

Kanakamuni, and I,

Being free from all afflictions,

Are all said to appear in the true age.

After that true age has passed,

There will be a Buddha named Wish-Fulfilling.

There he will attain perfect awakening

And teach the five dharmas to beings.

There is no duality amid the three calamities;

At the end of the age it is likewise.

The Buddhas do not appear then;

They appear in the world during a true age.

With no one to seize them, robes have their proper form;

Garments should not be tailored.

Patchwork robes are interspersed with worn and tattered pieces,

Like the painted colors of a peacock.

Patches two or three inches wide

Are sewn among the pieces of the robe.

If they were not made in this way,

Foolish people would covet and seize them.

Constantly extinguish the fire of craving;

Always bathe in the water of wisdom.

Throughout the six periods of day and night,

Practice the Dharma in accordance with reality.

Like a stone thrown or an arrow shot,

Which falls again when its momentum is spent,

One is launched and then another falls;

The skillful and unskillful are likewise.

Within the one there are not many kinds,

For its characteristics are not like that.

It is as wind takes hold of everything,

Or as a field is consumed by fire.

If one were to produce many,

Then nothing would have an agent.

Were it not so, everything would be lost;

Deluded cognition itself is the dharma.

Like a seed and a lamp,

How could many things be similar?

That one can produce many—

Deluded cognition itself is the dharma.

As sesame does not produce beans,

And rice does not produce wheat,

Nor barley seeds and so forth produce otherwise,

How then could one produce many?

Panini composed a treatise on sounds;

Akshapada composed the White Treatise.

In the final age there will be the Brahma collection,

Teaching treatises on worldly conventions.

Katyayana composed scriptures;

Yavaga did likewise.

Phalgu composed astronomy—

These are treatises of the latter final age.

Bali taught worldly merit;

People of the world rely upon merit and virtue,

Which can preserve the various dharmas.

King Bali governed the earth.

Mika, Matula,

Ashura... taught

Treatises on delusion and kingship;

In the final age, seers will appear.

Siddhartha of the Shakya clan,

Phudanda with five horns,

Powerful in speech and endowed with penetrating wisdom,

Will appear after my passing.

Ashina of the three caves;

Mikhala who bathes and sprinkles.

While I dwelt in the aranya,

Brahma bestowed this upon me:

“In a future age,

You will be named Great Freedom from Defiling Dust.

Those able to teach true liberation

Are the Venerable Munis.”

Brahma and the hosts of Brahma,

Together with other assemblies of devas,

Gave me deerskins and other things,

Then returned to the Ishvara heaven.

Variegated robes

And an alms bowl

Were given to me in a secluded place

By the Four Heavenly Kings and Shakra.

To speak of the unborn and of causes,

Of birth together with non-birth—

To seek to accomplish the unborn

Is merely to speak words.

If causes such as ignorance

Can give rise to the various minds,

Before form has arisen,

How could it abide in the interval?

The mind is extinguished instantly,

And yet another mind arises.

Form does not abide for even a single thought-moment;

Through contemplating what dharma does it arise?

Upon what causes and conditions does it depend?

Is mind the cause of delusion?

That cannot constitute a dharma;

How then can one know arising and cessation?

Through practice one accords with samadhi,

And with the nature of kim anjana (?).

The palace of the Abhasvara devas—

The worldly Dharma is not destroyed.

Abiding in the Dharma personally realized—

Such are all the Blessed Ones.

The wisdom of the Tathagatas...

Bhikshus realize and reach the Dharma,

As well as other realized dharmas;

That Dharma is ever indestructible.

How, through false seeing,

Are dharmas thought not to abide?

Forms are illusory, like a gandharva city;

Why are thoughts said not to abide?

Forms are devoid of the four great elements;

What then do the great elements make?

Because of ignorance there is mind;

The world has been habituated since beginningless time.

Depending upon the conjunction of arising and cessation,

Deluded cognition makes discriminations.

The Samkhya has two kinds:

The supreme principle and transformation.

Within the supreme principle the fruit is obtained,

And the fruit in turn brings another fruit to fulfillment.

The supreme principle is the characteristic of the great substance,

Said to possess distinctions of qualities.

The two dharmas of cause and effect

Do not exist within transformation.

Like a mirror or limpid water,

Unstained by any dust,

True suchness is pure in just this way,

And serves as the basis of sentient beings.

Like conception through yearning and haste,

And the embryo carried in a woman's womb;

Like salt and the taste within salt—

How can the seed exist?

Different in essence, yet unable to be different;

The two essences are free from two dharmas.

Dharmas of existence and nonexistence have causes and conditions;

They are not unconditioned nonexistence.

As there is no ox within a horse,

So too there is no self within the skandhas.

To speak of the conditioned and the unconditioned

Concerns dharmas that cannot be expressed.

Evil views measure the Agamas,

Relying upon defiled, erroneous cognition.

Not awakening, they speak of a self;

A non-cause is not apart from a cause.

Within the five skandhas there is no self;

Grasping a self is an error.

Within oneness and within difference,

Deluded cognition fails to awaken.

As in a mirror, in water, and within the eye,

One sees an image reflected in a mirror.

Far removed from both oneness and difference,

The self within the skandhas is likewise.

The object contemplated and that which contemplates

Through the path of meditation, one sees sentient beings

And contemplates those three dharmas,

Departing from erroneous views.

Thus knowledge and views are extinguished,

As space is seen through an opening.

The changing characteristics of all dharmas

Are falsely discriminated by the ignorant.

Nirvana transcends existence and nonexistence;

Abide in the state of seeing things as they truly are,

Far removed from arising and cessation,

And also beyond entities that exist or do not exist.

Free from seer and seen,

Contemplate the transformations of dharmas;

Depart from the doctrines of non-Buddhists,

And from the characteristics of names, substances, and forms.

Relying on erroneous views concerning the inner body,

They contemplate the transformations of dharmas,

The hells and the heavens,

Contact and tormenting affliction.

If there were no intermediate-state dharma,

How could birth occur in dependence upon consciousness?

Egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born beings...

Are born within the intermediate state.

The various bodies of sentient beings

Should be contemplated in their coming and going.

Apart from valid cognition and the Agamas,

They can give rise only to the seeds of affliction.

The non-Buddhists speak falsely;

The wise should not accept their words.

First contemplate the self,

Then examine causes and conditions.

Not knowing whether it exists, they say that it does;

Thus the daughter of a barren woman is superior.

Prajnaparamita transcends the physical eye;

The wondrous eye beholds sentient beings.

Free from the conditioned skandhas

Is the wondrous essential body of sentient beings.

Though abiding amid beautiful and ugly forms,

Liberation is free from bondage.

Within the conditioned abides the wondrous essence,

Which can behold the wondrous Dharma body.

Abiding within the six realms,

Deluded cognition does not apprehend its domain.

I formerly passed through the human realm;

It was not that deluded cognition remained,

Yet no thought of self arose—

From what cause did such birth occur?

Like a seed, a lamp, or a river—

Why is it not spoken of in this way?

Yet before consciousness has arisen,

There is as yet no ignorance...

Apart from the darkness of unconsciousness,

How could continuity arise?

The three times and the absence of time

Cannot be said to constitute a fifth.

This is the domain of all Buddhas;

Deluded cognition is contemplative practice.

Within practice it cannot be expressed,

For within practice one departs from discriminative knowledge.

Grasping occurs within all activities;

Wisdom is free from the dharmas of activity.

Depending upon this dharma, this arises;

What is presently seen is without a cause.

Conditions cannot be perceived;

Apart from them, there is no agent.

Depending upon wind, fire is able to burn;

Because of wind, movement can arise.

Wind can fan and stir the fire;

Wind can also extinguish the fire.

The ignorant do not discriminate clearly;

How, then, do sentient beings arise?

They speak of the conditioned and unconditioned,

Apart from support and that which is supported;

How could such dharmas be established?

The ignorant discriminate fire and wind.

The power of each increases the other,

Yet neither dharma overtakes the other;

How, then, could fire arise?

These are only meaningless words.

Who creates sentient beings,

That they are discriminated like fire?

The agent creates the skandhas, ayatanas, and body;

Mind and the rest can arise from causes.

As in the meaning of permanence and non-self,

Their shared mental continuum constantly turns and arises.

The two dharmas are always pure,

Free from all effects and causes.

Fire cannot establish this;

Deluded cognition does not understand.

Mind, sentient beings, and nirvana

Are pure in their intrinsic nature.

Though defiled by beginningless faults,

They remain unchanging, like empty space.

Defiled by the erroneous views of non-Buddhists,

Like a white elephant, a couch, or a city (?),

Obscured by mind and mental consciousness,

The vast... can be purified.

That person sees things as they truly are;

Having seen, that person destroys the afflictions.

Abandoning the metaphor of the dense forest,

That person realizes the domain of the noble ones.

Knowledge and the knower are distinguished;

They discriminate their essences as different.

The dull-witted do not understand,

And again declare it inexpressible.

It is like a sandalwood drum,

About which the ignorant propound divergent doctrines.

Like submerged sandalwood,

So too is the wisdom of all Buddhas.

Between and after meals, they do not accept food;

They take only the prescribed measure in their bowls,

Free from faults of speech and so forth,

And eat pure food.

This is practice in accordance with the Dharma;

Its correspondence cannot be understood.

Relying upon the Dharma, one can have faith;

Do not discriminate erroneous practices.

Not attached to worldly things,

One can realize the true meaning.

That person obtains genuine gold

And can kindle the lamp of Dharma.

Delusion concerning whether causes and conditions exist or not

Is the discriminating net of erroneous views.

All the defilements of affliction

Are left behind, together with greed, anger, and wrath.

Then they will not arise again,

Because all defilements are absent.

The Tathagatas themselves

Confer upon one the rank of Buddhahood.

Non-Buddhists are deluded about cause and effect;

Others are deluded about causes and conditions,

Or claim that things exist without causes.

Those holding annihilationist views are not noble ones.

Sensation and its changing effects,

Consciousness together with mental consciousness:

Mind arises from the fundamental consciousness,

And consciousness arises from mind.

All consciousnesses arise from the root,

Like waves arising upon the sea.

All arise from causes of perfuming,

And come into being according to causes and conditions.

Differentiating thoughts act like hooks,

Binding the mind itself to grasp its objects.

Resembling substantial forms and characteristics,

The eye and the rest then give rise to consciousness.

Bound by beginningless faults,

It arises by grasping objects through the perfuming of habit-energy.

Seeing external dharmas as mind

Obstructs all the views of non-Buddhists.

Depending upon that, they arise again,

And depending upon that, arising is contemplated;

Therefore erroneous views arise,

As does the worldly cycle of birth and death.

All dharmas are like dreams and illusions,

Like a city of the gandharvas,

Like a flame or the moon in water;

Contemplate them as mind itself.

Erroneous activity is not True Suchness;

Right wisdom is the samadhi of illusion.

Relying upon the Surangama Samadhi

And other samadhis,

One enters and attains the First Bhumi,

Samadhis, and the supernormal powers.

With wisdom and the wish-fulfilling body,

One receives the stage of entry into the Buddha-bhumi.

At that time, mind no longer arises,

Because the world is seen to be illusory.

One attains contemplation of that bhumi and the other bhumis,

And ultimately reaches the Buddha-bhumi.

The body serving as the basis is transformed,

Like the various colors of a mani jewel,

And also like the moon in water,

Performing deeds for sentient beings.

Free from adherence to existence and nonexistence,

Free from duality and nonduality,

One transcends the bhumis of the Two Vehicles

And also transcends the Seventh Bhumi.

Within the inner body, one sees all dharmas;

Each bhumi within the bhumis is purified.

Free from non-Buddhist teachings and external things,

One then expounds the Mahayana.

The discriminating consciousness is transformed;

One departs from the cessation of transformation.

Like a hare's horn or a mani jewel—

Thus speaks one who has attained liberation.

Just as one relies upon associated bonds,

So too does one rely upon dharmas.

Rely upon what accords with correspondence;

Do not discriminate it as something different.

Eye consciousness, karma, and sensation,

Right view and ignorance,

The eye, form, and mind—

Mental consciousness is defiled in this way.

When the Buddha expounded this Wondrous Sutra,

The noble Mahamati,

The bodhisattva mahasattvas,

The great king Ravana,

Shuka-palana,

Ung-nhi-dang-la-xoa,

The devas, nagas, and yakshas,

Gandharvas and asuras,

The devas and the Sangha of bhikshus

Greatly rejoiced and faithfully practiced it.

THE LANKAVATARA SUTRA

— End of the Tenth Fascicle —