Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
The ear consciousness, the faculty of hearing, and sounds are all illusory. They are interconnected and always changing. None of them have any fixed or self-nature.
“Ananda! As to your understanding that ear and sound as conditions give rise to ear-consciousness: is this consciousness born because of the ear, taking the ear as its sense-field? Or is it born because of sound, taking sound as its sense-field?
“Ananda! If it is born from the ear, then when the two aspects of motion and stillness are not absent, the faculty cannot know, and there is nothing to be known. If even knowing is not established, what form or appearance could consciousness have?
“If you base it on the ear’s hearing, since there is no motion or stillness, hearing is not established. How then could the ear’s form—mixed with the dusts of color and touch—be called the “sense-field of consciousness”? From what, then, would the sense-field of ear-consciousness be established?
If it is born from sound, then consciousness exists because of sound and has nothing to do with hearing; without hearing, the mark of sound would be lost. If consciousness is born from sound, you thereby allow that sound depends on hearing to have the mark of sound; then hearing should hear consciousness, and what is not heard would not be a sense-field. If it is heard, it is the same as sound; once consciousness is already heard, who is there to know the hearing of consciousness?
If there is no knower, it ends up like grasses and trees; sound and hearing should not be mixed together to form some middle sense-field. If a sense-field has no middle position, how could inner and outer phenomena be established?
Therefore, you should know that ear and sound as conditions give rise to the sense-field of ear-consciousness, yet these three bases are non-existent. Thus, the ear, the sound, and the sense-field of sound are all, from the very beginning, neither dependent-arising nor self-arising.
Just like the eye faculty, the ear and sound combined generate the ear consciousness or the consciousness of hearing. Yet all three are illusory, without self-nature, non-existent, ever-changing, neither dependent-arising nor self-arising.
The ear consciousness does not arise from the ears alone without sound, nor from sound alone without the ears, nor from empty space. The ears cannot function without sound, and sound has no meaning without a hearing faculty. Ear consciousness only arises when both come together. However, for those who are deaf, even with ears, this consciousness does not arise.
In sum, the six roots, six dusts, six consciousnesses are all illusory—non-existent, without self-nature, and neither dependent-arising nor self-arising. Nonetheless, we must use these very six roots, six dusts, and six consciousnesses in order to cultivate spiritually to recognize the wondrous luminous true mind. This is the so-called samadhi of Illusion: cultivating truth through what is false.
For example, our physical body is illusory and empty, yet it is through this body that one can attain the wondrous luminous true mind—cultivating falsehood to attain the truth. Later in the sutra, the Buddha will discuss how the twenty-five bodhisattvas used their illusory physical bodies to realize True Suchness; this is the essence of the samadhi of illusion.
Since Grandmaster can dance, he can differentiate between different kinds of dance music—tango, jitterbug, rumba, waltz, cha-cha, blues. When the rhythm and beat reach his ears, they naturally trigger his ear consciousness and awareness of the kind of music and what dance to perform.
Because of his frequent visits to these dance halls in the past, Grandmaster also converted many people he met there into disciples. Even while dancing, he remained in meditation.