Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
The Heart Sutra states: “No eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body or mind; no sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, or anything. No realm of the eyes, up to and including the realm of mind-consciousness.”
This excerpt covers the non-existence of the realm of the eyes. It has no form, no bases, no location, and it is not an aggregate. It is empty, neither dependent-arising nor self-arising.
“Ananda! The faculty of seeing and perceiving has no awareness of its own; it appears to exist only due to form and emptiness. For example, you are now in Jetavana Grove: bright in the morning, dark in the evening; at midnight, the moon brings light, otherwise it is dark. It is through your seeing that distinctions such as light and dark arise.
“Now, is this seeing one with light, darkness, and space, or not? Are they the same and not the same? Or different yet not different?
“Ananda, if seeing were fundamentally one with light, darkness, and space, then light and darkness would not exclude each other. In darkness there is no brightness, so when it is bright, it is not dark. If seeing were one with darkness, it would vanish when light appears; if one with light, it would cease in darkness. If it ceased, how could it perceive light or dark? Since light and dark alternate while seeing itself does not arise or cease, how could it be one with them?
“If the essence of seeing were separate from light, darkness, and space, then apart from these, what form would this seeing have? Without light, dark, or emptiness, the nature of seeing would be like tortoise hair or rabbit horns—utterly nonexistent. If light, dark, and space are distinct, which one would give rise to seeing?
“Light and dark oppose each other—how could seeing be the same as both? Apart from these three, seeing has no basis—how could it be different? Space and seeing are both boundless—how could they not be the same? Yet seeing dark and seeing light involves no change to seeing itself—how could they not be different?
“Examine this minutely and thoroughly: light comes from the sun, darkness follows the moonless night, openness belongs to space, and obstruction returns to the earth. From what, then, does the essence of seeing arise? Seeing is aware; space is inert. They neither blend nor combine. It cannot be that the essence of seeing arises spontaneously without cause.
“If the natures of seeing, hearing, and knowing are perfectly complete and all-pervading, innately unmoving, then you should understand that the boundless, unmoving space, together with the moving earth, water, fire, and wind, are collectively called the Six Great Elements. Their natures are perfect and interpenetrating—all are the tathagata-garbha, fundamentally non-arising and non-ceasing.
“Ananda! Your nature drifts in confusion, because you have not yet realized that your faculties of seeing, hearing, feeling, and knowing are fundamentally the tathagata-garbha. You should examine: do they arise and cease? Are they identical or different? Are they beyond arising and ceasing? Or are they neither identical nor different?
“You have never understood that in the tathagata-garbha, the nature sees the luminous awareness, and the essence of awareness is luminous seeing. It is pure, intrinsic, and pervades the entire dharma realm, manifesting in accord with the minds of sentient beings and their capacity to perceive.
“Just as the single faculty of sight can perceive the entire dharma realm, so too do hearing, smelling, tasting, touching, sensing, and knowing. Each posesses its own wondrous function, luminous and pure, pervading the entire dharma realm and filling all directions and space. How could they be confined to any specific location?
“According to karma it manifests; yet the ignorant are deluded, mistaking it for causation or inherent nature. These views are due to their discriminating mind—mere words and speech, without true meaning.”
This long passage essentially explains that the realm of the eyes does not truly exist. Although the sense faculty, sense object, and sense consciousness are needed for seeing to occur, they are independent of each other—neither combined nor merged, without bases, location, or form. The seeing nature does not arise from causes and conditions, nor does it arise by itself.
Whatever is seen is ultimately illusory and cannot be defined. If there is nothing to see, then seeing does not exist. The same applies to hearing, feeling, and knowing. Without the sense faculty, the sense object, or the corresponding consciousness, they do not arise.
All sense fields and the elements are manifestations of the wondrous luminous true mind, appearing only as the mind’s own discriminations.