Chapter Two, Shurangama Sutra

Chapter Two



Then Purnamaitreyaniputra arose from his seat in the midst of the great assembly, uncovered his right shoulder, knelt on his right knee, put his palms together respectfully, and said to the Buddha, "The most virtuous and awe-inspiring World Honered One has for the sake of beings expounded the primary truth of the Tathagata with remarkable eloquence. The World Honored One often singles me out as the foremost among speakers of the Dharma. But now when I hear the Tathagata’s wonderful, subtle expressions of the Dharma, I am like a deaf person who at a distance of more than a hundred paces tries to hear a mosquito, which in fact cannot be seen, let alone heard. Although the Buddha’s clear expressions have succeeded in dispelling our doubts, we still have not fathomed the ultimate meaning that could enable us to rise above all delusions. Those who are like Ananda, although enlightened, have not yet ended their outflows of their habits. Those of us present in the assembly who have reached the stage of no outflows, despite having ended our outflows, still wonder about the Dharma spoken by the Tathagata today.

"World Honored One, if all the mundane sense organs, sense objects, skandhas, places, and realms are the Treasury of the Tathagata, why, in that fundamental purity, do the mountains, rivers, great earth and all other conditioned phenomena suddenly arise, cyclically change and flow, end, and then begin again?

"Moreover, the Tathagata said that the basic natures of earth, water, fire, and wind are perfectly fused, pervade the Dharma Realm, and are tranquil and eternal. World Honored One, if the nature of earth is pervasive, how could it contain water? If the nature of water is pervasive, fire would not arise. Further, how do you explain that the natures of fire and water can each pervade empty space without displacing one another? World Honored One, the nature of earth is solid; the nature of emptiness is vacuous. How can they both pervade the Dharma Realm? I don’t know what this doctrine is aiming at. I only hope the Tathagata will compassionately explain in order to clear the clouds of confusion that engulf all of us in this great assembly."

After saying that, he made a full prostration and respectfully and expectantly awaited the Tathagata’s unsurpassed compassionate instruction.

The World Honored One then told Purna and all the Arhats in the assembly who had ended their outflows and had reached the level beyond study, "Today the Tathagata will explain in depth the truest most supreme meaning. May those of you in the assembly who are Hearers or Arhats of a fixed nature who have not yet realized the two kinds of emptiness and all who are dedicated to the Superior Vehicle reach the tranquility of the One Vehicle, the true aranya, the proper place of cultivation. Listen attentively and I will explain it for you."

Purna and the others listened quietly, respecting the Buddha’s expression of Dharma.

The Buddha said, "Purna, you have asked why in fundamental purity the mountains, the rivers, and the great earth suddenly arise. Have you not often heard the Tathagata expound upon the wonderful light of the enlightened nature and the bright wonder of fundamental enlightenment?"

Purna said, "Yes, World Honored One, I have often heard the Buddha expound upon that subject."

The Buddha said, "You speak of understanding enlightenment; does the nature understand and is that called enlightenment? Or does enlightenment initially lack understanding and so you speak of understanding enlightenment?"

Purna said, "If a lack of understanding is called enlightenment, then there would be no understanding at all."

The Buddha said, "If there were no understanding at all, then there could be no understanding of enlightenment. If understanding is added, then that is not enlightenment. If understanding is not added, then there’s no understanding. But a lack of understanding or ignorance is not the lucid bright nature of enlightenment. The nature of enlightenment certainly includes understanding. It’s redundant to speak of understanding enlightenment. Enlightenment is not a kind of understanding. Understanding sets up an objective realm. Once that objective realm is set up, your false subjective state arises.

"Where there was neither sameness nor difference, suddenly difference appears. What differs from that difference, becomes sameness. Once sameness and difference mutually arise, and due to them, what is neither the same nor different is created. This turmoil eventually brings about weariness. Prolonged weariness produces defilement. The combination of these in a murky turbidity creates afflictions with respect to wearisome defilements. The world comes about through this arising; the lack of any arising becomes emptiness. Emptiness is sameness; the world, difference. Those that have neither difference nor sameness become conditioned dharmas.

"The understanding added to enlightenment creates a light that stands in mutual opposition with the darkness of emptiness. As a result, wind wheels that support the world come into being. The tension between emptiness and that light creates movement. The false, persistent light congeals into a solidity that becomes metal. A lack of enlightenment nurtures that persistence and causes metal wheels to secure all lands. That tenacious unenlightened state creates metal, while the fluctuations of light cause the wind to rise. The friction between wind and metal creates fire, which is mutable in nature. Metal produces moisture, which causes flame to rise from the fire. Thus the wheel of water that encompasses all realms in the ten directions comes about. Fire rises and water falls, and the combination becomes tenacious. What is wet becomes the oceans and seas; what is dry becomes the continents and islands. Because of this, fire often rises up in the oceans, and on the continents the streams and rivers ever flow. When the power of water is less then that of fire, high mountains result. That is why mountain rocks give off sparks when struck, and become liquid when melted. When the power of earth is less then that of water, the outcome is grasses and trees. That is why the vegetation in groves and marshes turns to ashes when burned and oozes water when twisted. The interaction of that false dichotomy in turn creates these elements as seeds and from these causes and conditions comes the continuity of the world.

"Moreover, Purna, the false understanding is none other than the mistake of adding understanding to enlightenment. After the falseness of the objective realm is established, the subjective understanding cannot transcend it. Due to that, hearing does not go beyond sound, and seeing does not surpass form. Forms, smells, tastes, objects of touch and the others of the six falsenesses are realized. Because of them there is a division into seeing, sensation, hearing, and knowing. Similar karma binds beings together; union and separation bring about their transformations.

"The manifastation of light is caused by false view and ignorance. Competitive views generate hatred; compatible views create love. The flow of love becomes a seed; the potential foetus is taken in and conception occurs. When intercourse takes place, beings with similar karma are drawn in. From these causes and conditions, the kalaka, arbuda, and other foetal stages evolve. The womb-born, egg-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born beings come about in response: the egg-born come from thought, the womb-born are due to emotion, the moisture-born arise from union, and transformations occur through separation. Emotion, thought, union, and separation go through further changes, and the maturation of such karma causes one to rise or sink. From such causes and conditions comes the continuity of beings.

"Purna, thought and love become bound together so that people love each other and cannot bear to be apart. As a result, ceaseless successive births of parents, children, and grandchildren occur in this world. And the basis for all that is desire and greed.

"Greed and emotional love feed on one another until the greed becomes insatiable. The result of that in this world is the tendency of egg-born, womb-born, moisture-born, and transformation-born beings to devour one another to the extent that their strength permits. The basis for all that is killing and greed.

"Suppose a person eats a sheep. The sheep dies and becomes a person; the person dies and becomes a sheep, The same applies in all rebirths among the ten categories. Through death after death and birth after birth, they eat each other. The evil karma one is born with continues to the bounds of the future. The basis for all that is stealing and greed.

"’You owe me a life; I must repay my debt to you.’ Due to such causes and conditions we pass through hundreds of thousands of eons in sustained cycle of birth and death. ‘You love my mind; I adore your good looks.’ Due to such causes and conditions we pass through hundreds of thousands of eons in sustained mutual entanglement. Killing, stealing, and lust are the basic roots. From such causes and conditions comes the continuity of karma and retribution.

"Purna, these three kinds of upside-down continuity come from adding understanding to enlightenment. That lack of understanding generates an internal awareness which gives rise to external phenomena. Both are born of false views. From this falseness the mountains, the rivers, the great earth, and all conditioned phenomena unfold themselves in a succession that recurs in endless cycles."

Purna said, "If this wonderful enlightenment, the wonderful awareness of fundamental enlightenment, which is neither greater than nor less than the mind of the Tathagata, abruptly brings forth the mountains, the rivers, and the great earth, and all conditioned phenomena, then now that the Tathagata has attained the wonderful emptiness of clear enlightenment, will the mountains, the rivers, the great earth, and all conditioned habitual outflows arise ever again?"

The Buddha said to Purna, "If a person living in a village were confused about directions, mistaking south for north, would that confusion be the result of confusion or of awareness?"

Purna said, "His confusion would be the result of neither. Why not? Confusion is fundamentally baseless, so how could anything arise because of it? And as awareness does not produce confusion, how could confusion arise out of it?"

The Buddha said, "If someone who knows the directions points them out to the confused person, then once the person who was confused becomes aware, do you suppose, Purna, that he could lose his sense of direction again in that village?"

"No, World Honored One."

"Purna, the Tathagatas of the ten directions are the same way. Confusion is groundless and ultimately empty in nature. In the past, there basically was no confusion. It merely seemed as if there were confusion and enlightenment. When the delusion about confusion and enlightenment is ended, enlightenment will not give rise to confusion. Consider the person who, because of cataracts, saw flowers in space. Once the cataracts were removed, the flowers in space disappeared. Were he to rush to the spot where the flowers disappeared and wait for them to reappear, would you consider that person to be stupid or wise?"

Purna said, "Originally there weren’t any flowers in space. It was through a seeing disability that they appeared and disappeared. To see the disappearance of the flowers in space is already a distortion. To wait for them to reappear is sheer madness. Why bother to determine further if such a person is stupid or wise?"

The Buddha said, "Since you explain it that way, why do you ask if the clear emptiness of wonderful enlightenment can once again give rise to the mountains, the rivers, and the great earth? Consider a piece of ore containing gold and other metals mixed together. Once the pure gold is extracted it will never become ore again. Consider wood that has burnt to ashes; it will never become wood again. The Bodhi and Nirvana of all Buddhas, the Tathagatas, are the same way.

"Purna, you also asked whether the natures of water and fire would not destroy each other if the natures of earth, water, fire, and wind were all perfectly fused and pervaded the Dharma Realm, and whether space and the great earth would not be incompatible if both pervaded the Dharma Realm.

"Purna, consider space: its substance is not the various phenomena, yet that does not prevent all phenomena from being included within it. How do we know that? Purna, empty space is bright on a sunny day, and dark when the sky is cloudy. It moves when the wind rises, it is fresh when the sky clears. It is turbid and hazy when the weather is foul, it is obscure when a dust storm breaks out. It casts a bright reflection on a pool of clear water. Do you think these conditioned phenomena come into existence at different places? Are they created from these conditions themselves or is their origin in space. If they arise from these conditions, Purna, then on a sunny day, since the sun is bright, all worlds of the ten directions should take on the form of the sun. Then why, on a sunny day do we see the round sun in the sky? If space is bright, space itself should shine. Then why, when there is a covering of clouds and fog, is no light evident? You should know that the brightness is not the sun, nor space nor other than the space or the sun. Contemplate how phenomena are ultimately false and cannot be verified. They are like flowers conjured up in space that cannot bear fruit. Why, then, investigate how such phenomena appear and disappear? Contemplate how the nature is ultimately truth and is solely the wonderful enlightened brightness. That wonderful enlightened bright mind originally was neither water nor fire. Why, then, ask about incompatibility?

"The truly wonderful enlightened brightness is the same way. You recognize space, and space appears. Recognizing earth, water, fire, and wind, each will appear. If all are recognized, all will appear. How can they all appear? Purna, consider the sun’s reflection as it appears in a single body of water. Two people gaze at it, both at the same time. Then one person walks east and the other walks west. Each person, still looking at the water will see a sun go along with him, one to the east, one to the west, while there seems to be no fixed direction for the movement of the sun’s reflection. Don’t belabor the question and ask, ‘If there is one sun, how can it follow both people? Or if the sun is double, why does only one appear in the sky?’ This is just revolving in falseness, because such things cannot be proven.

"Purna, you think that form and emptiness overcome and destroy one another in the Treasury of the Tathagata. Thus the Treasury of the Tathagata appears to you as form and emptiness throughout the Dharma Realm. And so, within it the wind moves, emptiness is still, the sun is bright, and the clouds are dark. The reason for this lies in the delusion of beings who have turned their backs on enlightenment and joined with the defiling dust. Thus, the wearisome defilements come into being and mundane phenomena exist.

"Based on wonderful understanding that neither ceases to be nor comes into being, I unite with the Treasury of the Tathagata. Thus the Treasury of the Tathagata is the unique and wonderful enlightened brightness which completely illumines the Dharma Realm. That is why, within it, the one is limitless; the limitless is one. In the small appears the great; in the great appears the small. Unmoving in the Bodhimanda, yet pervading the ten directions, my body contains the ten directions and endless emptiness. On the tip of a single hair appear the lands of the Jewelled Kings. Sitting in a mote of dust, I turn the great Dharma wheel, put an end to defiling dust, and unite with enlightenment, so that true suchness, the wonderful enlightened bright nature, comes into being.