Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
This is Ananda’s last presumption on where the mind is; he suggested that the mind exists when there is no attachment.
“Ananda said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One, I once saw you turning the wheel of dharma with the four great disciples—Maha Maudgalyayana, Subhuti, Purna Maitrayaniputra, and Sariputra. At that time, I often heard it said, ‘The nature of the mind that is aware and discerning is not inside, not outside, and not in between. It has no fixed location at all. It is completely unattached. Such is the mind.’ So, is non-attachment the mind?”
Turning the dharma wheel means continually teaching and spreading buddhadharma. Of the four great disciples, Maudgalyayana was foremost in transcendental powers; Subhuti in understanding emptiness; Purna in expounding dharma; Sariputra in wisdom.
The Buddha said to Ananda, “The person who says that ‘the aware and discerning mind is nonexistent,’ as well as space and all worldly phenomena—including air, water, and land creatures—are referred to as ‘everything.’ [Now, do they exist or not?] Does this person who claims to be unattached exist or not? If none of these exist, then they are like turtle hair or rabbit horns—why [bother] speaking of non-attachment at all?
“Since the unattached [person] exists, we cannot call it nonexistence. Only when there are no phenomena, it is nonexistence, but when it is not nothing, there must be phenomena. Since there are phenomena and existence, how can there be non-attachment? Thus, you should know that saying ‘non-attachment is called the aware and knowing mind’—is meaningless.”
The Buddha refuted Ananda and explained that since there is no mind, there is no attachment. Since one still thinks whether there is attachment or not, it indicates that the mind still exists. If attachment exists, that means the mind exists. By the same token, if non-attachment exists, the discerning mind also exists. Therefore, saying that “when there is non-attachment, the mind exists,” is incorrect. Ananda meant that when everything is nonexistent, the mind is there—that is also wrong. How can there be mind without attachment? Only when there is no mind does non-attachment follow naturally. Saying that non-attachment is the mind does not make sense.
If the mind existed, it could be discerned by its form.
Attachment or non-attachment only exist when there is something to attach or not attach to. If the mind does not exist, what is there to say about attachment?