Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
Only the wondrous luminous true mind is non-arising and non-ceasing. Everything else arises and ceases due to causes and conditions, and is illusory. Amid the wondrous luminous true mind, to seek birth, death, delusion, or enlightenment is futile. There is nothing to gain.
“Ananda! You still do not understand that all the illusions and transformations of the dusty world are born where they arise and extinguished where they cease. Though falsely labeled as appearances, their true nature is the luminous essence of the wondrous awareness.
“This applies even to the five skandhas, the six sense entries, the twelve sense bases, and the eighteen realms. All these phenomena falsely appear to arise when conditions come together, and falsely appear to cease when conditions disintegrate. Yet people fail to recognize that within what seems to be birth, death, coming and going, there is fundamentally the Tathagatagarbha—the eternally abiding, wondrously bright, unmoving, perfectly complete true suchness.
“Within this truly eternal nature, to seek coming or going, confusion, birth or death is ultimately to find nothing to be obtained.”
Only the wondrous luminous true mind is free from birth and death. Birth and death too are illusory, and so are all phenomena in the world—they all arise and cease according to their causes and conditions. These phenomena include the five skandhas (aggregates): form, sensation, mental formation, action, and consciousness; the six sense entries (senses): eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind; the twelve sense bases: six roots and six dusts; and the eighteen realms: the six roots, six dusts, and six consciousnesses.
We are all illusory, with false names for the false phenomena. When the affinity matures, you are born. When the affinity ceases, you die. Birth and death are also mere names and are false. Humans are born due to causes and conditions. We are born because of our parents—the union of a long sperm and a round egg. This is when the four elements (earth, water, fire, wind) integrate. When the four elements disintegrate—when causes and conditions cease—we die. Everything in the saha world, including houses, cars, Earth, Sun, Moon, and stars, is illusory, false aggregates, and unreal. They all arise and cease. Even the Earth goes through the cycle of creation, existence, deterioration, emptiness, and it will be gone one day; a kalpa is a period from its creation to its annihilation.
Sakyamuni Buddha emphasizes that the only real thing is the wondrous luminous true mind, and it is non-arising and non-ceasing. Within the illusory world of life and death, there is nothing to gain.
The only thing that is non-arising and non-ceasing is the wondrous luminous true mind.
The Heart Sutra—a sutra of enlightenment—states clearly:
“…no forms, sounds, smells, tastes, touches, nor mental objects; nor is there the realm of the eyes, up to and including the realm of mind consciousness. There is no ignorance nor the ending of ignorance…”
It is already made very clear that there is nothing!