REVIEW OF SESSIONS 1 - 6
Session One - Ānanda gives seven locations for the mind, which are refuted by the Buddha.
Session Two - The Buddha and Ājñāta-kāuṇḍinya explain that the conditional mind is like ‘transient dust’ which moves, whereas the bright, original Mind is like a ‘host’ who has nowhere to go.
Session Three - The Buddha explains the ‘Ground of Mind’ and ‘true seeing’ which does not age or die. “Sentient beings are confused about things, being turned around by external objects they lose their original Mind. If they are able to turn objects around, they will be the same as the Thus Come One.”
Session Four - Mañjuśrī and the Buddha explain that the True Mind neither arises nor ceases and is therefore beyond ‘is’ and ‘is not’. “When one sees seeing, one sees what is not seeing. Seeing free of seeing, seeing cannot reach.”
Session Five - The Buddha explains how the Five Aggregates, Six Senses, Twelve Bases, Eighteen Realms are the profound nature of True Suchness (bhūtatathatā) of the Womb of Thus Come Ones (Tathāgatagarbha), and how the Seven Elements are completely interfused with one another (圓融) and extend throughout the Dharmadhātu.
Session Six - Pūrṇa asks about the seeming contradiction that the Seven Elements are completely interfused with one another (圓融) and extend throughout the Dharmadhātu. The Buddha explains ‘three continuities’: the world, sentient beings, and karma.
The Five Turbidites
Chapter Six begins with a discourse on generating bodhicitta and makes a distinction between the ‘causal-ground’ (因地) of generating bodhicitta and the ‘fruit-ground’ (果地) of awakening.
The Buddha says, “The pure, perfect, wondrous enlightened mind that understands is divided into the functions of seeing, hearing, sensory awareness, and contemplation. Hence, the five turbidities (kaṣāya) come about as a result.
- The turbidity of time (kalpa) from the entanglement of space and seeing
- The turbidity of views (dṛṣṭi) from the entanglement of seeing, hearing, sensory awareness, and knowing (見聞覺知) with the four great elements
- The turbidity of afflictions (kleśa) from the entanglement of objects perceived and mind-consciousness habituated to recollecting the past, to being aware of the present, and to anticipating the future.
- The turbidity of individual beings (sattva) from the entanglement of thoughts and karmic action
- The turbidity of lifespans (jiva) from the entanglement of consciousnesses and their objects, although the six sense-consciousnesses share a single fundamental awareness, their functioning become distinct.
Time (世) and Space (界)
The Buddha uses an interesting etymology of the phrase 世界 (shìjiè ’world’, the translation of loka) to speak of the difference between time (flux and change) and space (location and direction). Taking the three times (past, present, and future) and the four directions, the Buddha multiplies them together to make 12 and then several more times, then applies this to the six faculties of perception, measuring the efficacy (功德 ’merit’) of each, with a total of twelve hundred signifying the greatest possible efficacy.
Eyes = 800 (it functions in three directions but not in the fourth).
Ears = 1200 (able to hear in all ten directions, distant or far, unbounded in silence).
Nose = 800 (in the space between inhaling and exhaling, the breath is lacking one of three aspects).
Tongue = 1200 (languages differ from place to place, but meanings know no boundary).
Body = 800 (lacking awareness once there is separation).
Mental Faculty = 1200 (silently inclusive of all phenomena within its scope).
Turning the Senses Around
“If you can discern which of your faculties can lead you to break through (圓通) to enlightenment, then you will be able to go upstream against the current that carries the karma in which, due to your delusion, you have been immersed since time without beginning.”
“None of the eighteen constituents is superior or inferior. But because you are at a lower level and have not yet fully developed that wisdom which is independent of conditions, I have explained all this to you in detail so that you will be able to choose one faculty as a gateway to deep practice. If you take that path until you have left behind all distortion within that one faculty, then all the other faculties will be purified as well.”
“You still do not understand the illusory habits (vāsanā) which you have accumulated in life after life since time without beginning. You will need to practice even more to get rid of the subtle aspects of your habits as they come into being, abide, decay, and perish. Consider whether the six faculties are one or six.”
“You have conceived the idea that there is ‘one’ and ‘six’ within the fundamental perfect clarity. You have attained the stage of śrota-āpanna (’stream-entry’) and have purified the six, but you have not done away with the one.”
“Like space, which is neither one nor not one, you should understand that the same is true of the six faculties of perception.
The six faculties come into being out of the awakened mind when another understanding is added to that awakened mind. As a result, the essential understanding is lost and the faculties adhere to what is distorted, and each one assumes a different function. Therefore, if you were now to be deprived of both light and darkness, would your seeing continue to exist or would it not? [And so on for sound and hearing, etc.] All that you need to do is not allow your attention to be diverted by the twelve conditioned attributes of sound and silence, contact and separation, flavor and the absence of flavor, openness and blockage, coming into being and perishing, and light and darkness. Next, extricate one faculty by detaching it from its objects, and redirect that faculty inward so that it can return to what is original and true. Then it will radiate the light of the original understanding. This brilliant light will shine forth and extricate the other five faculties until they are completely free. If your six faculties are freed from the objects that they perceive so that the light of your understanding is not diverted into one or another of the faculties, then the light of your understanding will manifest through all the faculties so that all six of them will function interchangeably.”
“Once all your faculties are completely disengaged, a pure brilliance will shine forth from within them. Then all coarse perceived objects — indeed all phenomena subject to change in the material world — will be transformed, just as ice is transformed when it melts in hot water.”
Seven Names of the ‘Fruit-Ground’
- 菩提 Bodhi
- 涅槃 Nirvāṇa
- 真如 Suchness (bhūtatathhatā)
- 佛性 Buddha Nature (buddhatā)
- 菴摩羅識 Amalavijñāna (’Stainless Knowledge’)
- 空如來藏 Empty Treasury of Thus Come Ones (tathāgatagarbha)
- 大圓鏡智 The Great Perfect Mirror of Wisdom (Mahā-adarśana-jñāna)
Ānanda asks about the causal ground in relation to the fruit ground:
“The faculties of seeing and hearing have no independent nature in the absence of brightness and darkness, sound and silence, and are like the thinking mind which ceases to exist in the absence of sense data. How can they be used as the point of departure in the search of these seven permanent fruits? What then should I set up as the cause in my quest of unsurpassable awakening?”
True Hearing
The Buddha has Rāhula ring a bell and asks Ānanda about hearing. Ānanda says that when there is sound there is hearing and when there is no sound there is no hearing. The Buddha replies:
“Existence and non-existence concern only the sound which may be present or not, but how can the nature of your hearing follow your discrimination to exist or not? If it really ceased, who then knew there was no sound?”
This session covers:
Hsuan Hua translation, “The Coming into Being of the World of Illusion” p. 169-195 of the book (p. 197-222 of the pdf)
Luk translation, p. 102-118 of the book (p. 146-166 of the pdf)
Goddard translation, p.179 - 213