CH 8 - “Purity” (Cont.)
2. Attachment
Subhuti: “It is an attachment if one perceives that the skandhas are empty, that past dharmas are past dharmas, future dharmas are future dharmas, and present dharmas are present dharmas. It is an attachment if one forms the notion that someone who belongs to the vehicle of the Bodhisattvas begets so great a heap of merit through his first production of the thought of enlightenment.”
Buddhist: “As a matter of fact, the true nature of dharmas is not past, nor future, nor present; it lies quite outside the three periods of time; and for that reason it cannot possibly be converted, cannot be treated as a sign, or as an objective support, and it cannot be seen, nor heard, nor felt, nor known.”
3. Nonattachment
Buddha: “It is just through their essential nature that those dharmas are not a something. Their nature is no-nature, and their no-nature is their nature. Because all dharmas have one characteristic only [i.e. no characteristics]. It is for this reason that all dharmas have the character of not having been fully known by the Tathagata. For there are no two natures of dharma, but just one single one is the nature of all dharmas. And the nature of all dharmas is no nature, and their no-nature is their nature. It is thus that all those points of attachment are abandoned.”
Buddha: “One courses in Prajñāpāramitā if one does not course in the idea that form is with attachment, or without attachment. And as for form, so for the other skandhas, the sight organ, etc., to feeling born from eye contact; so for the physical elements, the six perfections, the thirty-seven aids to enlightenment, the powers, the grounds of self-confidence, the analytical knowledges, the eighteen special Buddha-dharmas, and the fruits of the holy life, from the fruit of a Streamwinner to all-knowledge. When they course thus, bodhisattvas do not generate attachment to anything, from form to all-knowledge. For all-knowledge is unattached, it is neither bound nor freed, and there is nothing that has risen above it. It is thus, Subhuti, that Bodhisattvas should course in Prajñāpāramitā through rising completely above all attachments.”
4. Like Space or an Echo
Subhuti: “Just so, bodhisattvas who course and dwell in Prajñāpāramitā comprehend that all dharmas are like an echo. They do not think about them, does not review, identify, or perceive them, and they know that those dharmas do not exist, that their reality does not appear, cannot be found, cannot be got at. If they dwell thus, they course in Prajñāpāramitā.
5. Conclusion
Buddha: “In these very words, by monks called Subhuti, etc., has this very Prajñāpāramitā been expounded, just this very chapter of the Prajñāpāramitā. With reference to it just the Śakras, Chiefs of Gods, ask questions and counter-questions. At this very spot of earth has just this Prajñāpāramitā been taught. Maitreya also, the Bodhisattva, the great being will, after he has won the supreme enlightenment, at this very spot of earth teach this very same Prajñāpāramitā.”