Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
The wondrous luminous true mind, another term for true suchness and buddhanature, can manifest and transform in myriad ways.
At that time, the World-Honored One said to Ananda, “You have already turned away from the teachings of the sravaka and pratyekabuddha—those of the lesser vehicle—and have aspired with diligence toward unsurpassed bodhi. Therefore, I now reveal to you the ultimate truth. How could you once again entangle yourself in worldly sophistries and false conditioning?
You may be learned, but you are like one who can discuss medicines but cannot recognize a true remedy when it is set before him. The Tathagata says that you are indeed worthy of pity.
Now listen attentively, and I shall distinguish and explain this, so that those who in the future cultivate the Mahayana may also awaken to the reality of true suchness.”
Ananda was silent, awaiting the sagely instruction.
Unsurpassed bodhi refers to anuttara samyaksambodhi—the supreme, unparalleled enlightenment. Although Ananda was foremost in hearing the Buddha’s teachings, he was still entangled in the dharma of causes and conditions, which belongs to worldly dharma, and caught up in worldly sophistries—the rhetoric of the world.
He needed to be freed from these attachments. In terms of the beyond-worldly dharma, even the dharma of causes and conditions [dependent-arising], the dharma of self-arising, and the aggregates do not inherently exist.
The Buddha likened Ananda to someone who only knows the names of the medicines (teachings), but cannot distinguish which ones are real. Out of the 84,000 kinds of medicines given by the Buddha, Ananda had yet to truly apply or realize any of them.
Grandmaster explained that worldly dharma concerns aggregates, causes and conditions (dependent-arising) and self-arising, yet ultimately, none of these exist—this is the beyond-worldly dharma. In our saha world, everything is subject to the dharma of causes and conditions, self-arising, and aggregation. The entire universe and our physical bodies are composed of the four elements of earth, water, fire, and wind. When these disperse, everything including the universe and the body cease to exist.
All phenomena undergo the four stages of creation [arising], existence [abiding], deterioration [changing], and emptiness [extinction]. A house may last hundreds of years, but it will eventually collapse. A beautiful person will lose her beauty when she grows old, and everyone eventually dies. Affinities among people are also ever-changing. Although Grandmaster’s parents had six children together, they later changed to the point that his father stated in his will that he did not wish to be buried near her—not even on the same continent.
Everything arises and ceases according to causes and conditions; whatever is self-arising, caused by conditions, and formed by aggregates is transient.
When Grandmaster’s mother passed away, she still clung to money owed to her. Amitabha Buddha appeared and enticed her with a golden throne adorned with diamonds, far more precious than what she sought. As soon as she got on Amitabha’s throne, she ascended to the Purple Bamboo Grove of Mount Potalaka, the pureland of the South Sea Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva, returning to her origin.
No one can truly own anything. We must transcend all the worldly things and let go of our desire for fame, wealth, sensual pleasure, power, and the like, as none can be taken with us after death. The only eternal reality is the wondrous luminous true mind, as taught in the beyond-worldly dharma—the true suchness revealed in the Surangama Sutra. It manifests in myriad ways and includes both the development and completion stages. All else is illusory.