Session 1 - The Suchness of Mind

History and Outline of the Text

The text known as the Awakening of Faith in the Mahayana 大乘起信論 is a short commentary on Mahayana Buddhist teachings as a whole. The reconstructed Sanskrit title of the work is Mahāyāna -śraddhotpāda-śāstra and it is said to have been written in Sanskrit by Aśvaghoṣa (80 - 150 C.E.), yet no Sanskrit version of the text exists today and it is now widely regarded by scholars as having come from a later date. The oldest known version of the text is from around 550 C.E., a chinese translation attributed to Paramārtha (499-569 CE), yet this attribution is also debated. There is a second version (or reedited version) attributed to the Khotanese monk Śikṣānanda (active 695-700).

The text is divided into five parts:

I. Reasons for writing - The ‘causes and conditions’

II. ‘Outline’ - ‘Establishing the meaning’ of the word Mahā-yāna

IV. Cultivating the Faithful Mind - For those who have not generated bodhicitta

V. Encouragement & Advantages - To practice the contents of the text

PART ONE: Eight reasons for writing the Awakening of Faith

1. To cause people to free themselves from suffering
2. To provide a correct interpretation of the Dharma
3. For those with faith to become non-regressing in it
4. For those without faith, to develop it
5. As upāya to free people from evil karmic obstructions
6. To explain the practice of 止 and 觀 ‘stopping and seeing’ (śamatha & vipaśyanā)
7. To explain the upāya of mindfulness, being ‘born’ before buddhas
8. To encourage by pointing out the advantages of it.

Question: What need is there to repeat the explanation of the teaching when it is presented in detail in the sutra?

Answer: That was then, this is now.

PART TWO: Establishing the Meaning of Mahāyāna

There are two aspects to Mahāyāna: 1. dharma (the ‘thing/object’), and 2. ārtha (the meaning).

1. Dharma

The bhūtatathatā-lakṣaṇa of the minds of all sentient beings demonstrate:

• Body (體 bhāva, essence, svabhāva) of the Mahāyāna
• Use (用, kriyā function)
• Characteristics (相 lakṣana)

2. Meaning (ārtha)

• Body greatness, because the equality (samatā) of the thusness of all dharmas neither increases nor decreases;
• Characteristic greatness, because the nature of the tathāgatagarbha (’Womb of Thus Come Ones’) is replete with immeasurable merit; and
• Functional greatness, because it can give rise to all good mundane and trans-mundane causes and results.

It is the vehicle ridden by each and every buddha, and all bodhisattvas ride this vehicle all the way to Stage of a Thus Come One.

PART THREE: Elucidation

The majority of the text is given in this part. It has three chapters:

1. Revealing the Correct Meaning - The essential teachings on Suchness
2. Controlling Evil Attachments - Q&A about the essential teachings
3. Types of Aspiration for Enlightenment - Three different ways to aspire to enlightenment

Ch 1 - Revealing the Correct Meaning

There are two ‘gateways’ (門, doors or entryways) based on the Dharma of the One Mind:

• The Suchness of Mind 心真如門
• The arising and ceasing of Mind 心生滅門

門 The Suchness of Mind

“That which is called “the essential nature of the Mind” neither arises nor ceases. It is only through illusions that all things come to be differentiated. If one is freed from illusions, then there will be no appearances (lakṣana) of [independently existent] objects; therefore all things from the beginning transcend all forms of verbalization, description, and conceptualization and are, in the final analysis, undifferentiated, free from alteration, and indestructible. They are only of the One Mind; hence the name suchness. All explanations by words are provisional and without validity, for they are merely used in accordance with illusions and are incapable [of denoting suchness]. The term suchness likewise has no attributes [which can be verbally specified]. The term suchness is, so to speak, the limit of verbalization wherein a word is used to put an end to words. But the essence of suchness itself cannot be put an end to, for all things [in their absolute aspect] are real; nor is there anything which needs to be pointed out as real, for all things are equally in the state of suchness. It should be understood that all things are incapable of being verbally explained or thought of; hence, the name suchness.”

Suchness, if put into words, is called:

• Truly empty - for being free of the characteristics of differentiated dharmas
• Truly not empty - because all dharmas are already originally empty