REVIEW OF SESSIONS 1 - 7
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 ‘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 - Pūrṇamaitrāyaṇīputra 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.
Session Seven - Now that Ānanda and the others have ‘boarded the Great Vehicle’ the Buddha explains two meanings to generating the bodhicitta: 1. The Five Turbidities and 2. The entangled Six Senses. Ānanda asks, “What should I set up as the cause in my quest of unsurpassable awakening [i.e. the fruit]? Rāhula rings a bell and the Buddha explains the nature of ‘true hearing’ which does not depend upon sound and silence.
Untying the Six Knots
When describing the ‘efficacy of the senses’ in the last section, the Buddha introduces the analogy of untying a knot. “If you cannot see the knot, how will he know how to untie it?”
The Buddha asks about Upāya
The Buddha asks the assembly, “How did you come to all-pervasive (’pariniṣpanna’) awareness of the eighteen sense fields?
- Ājñāta-kauṇḍinya = the sound of the Dharma
- Upaniṣad = the unloveliness of visible forms
- ‘Fragrance Adorned’ = fragrant adornments
- Medicine King (Bhaiṣajyarāja) and Medicine Supreme (Bhaiṣajya-samudgata) = the nonexistence of flavors
- Bhadrapāla = the unreality of tactile objects
- Mahākāśyapa = the emptiness of mental dharmas
- Aniruddha = turning the organ of sight back to its source
- Kṣudrapanthaka = turning the breath back to emptiness
- Gavāṃpati = turning taste back to its knower
- Pilindavatsa = wiping out the conception of a body
- Subhūti = perceiving the unreality of dharmas
- NOTE: There is no ear faculty section here.
- Śāriputra = the mind’s ‘radiant’ sight perception
- Samantabhadra = non-discriminative sovereignty of hearing with the mind
- Sundarananda = dissolving the breath until it becomes light
- Pūrṇamaitrāyaṇīputra = using the sound/voice of the Dharma to control the enmity of Māra
- Upāli = body and mind penetrating everywhere
- Mahāmaudgalyāyana = returning to stillness to allow the light of the mind to appear
This session covers:
Hsuan Hua translation, “The Analogy of the Six Knots” & “Twenty-Five Sages” p. 196 - 233 of the book (p. 252 - 289 of the pdf)
Luk translation, p. 118 - 135 of the book (p. 166 - 191 of the pdf)
Goddard translation, p. 213-245