Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
The tathagata-garbha encompasses both form and emptiness. Therefore, do not regard the self as real!
Ruminating on which shadow of the sun or which reflection of the moon is the real one is simply wasting time; it is merely circling in empty falsity and has no basis in reality. The sun and the moon themselves are not real; likewise, the human body and the entire saha world are not real.
“If you think that space is luminous, then space appears. If earth, water, fire, or wind are luminous, then each appears. Anything that becomes luminous appears. How, then, do they appear?
“Purna, consider the reflection of the sun appearing in a body of water. If two people look at the sun’s reflection in the water and then walk apart—one east, one west—each will see a sun following them. One goes east, the other west, yet there was originally no fixed position. You should not then question, ‘Since this sun is one, how can it go in separate directions?’ Nor ask, ‘Since there appear to be two suns, how can there be only one reflection?’ Such reasoning merely circles in empty falsity and has no basis in reality.
“Purna, you take form and emptiness to oppose and negate each other within the tathagata-garbha. Yet the tathagata-garbha, according to conditions, manifests as form and as emptiness, pervading the entire dharma realm.”
When one notices that space is luminous, space appears. When earth, water, fire, and wind are luminous, they appear and each functions according to its nature.
Ruminating on which shadow of the sun or which reflection of the moon is the real one is simply wasting time; it is merely circling in empty falsity and has no basis in reality. The sun and the moon themselves are not real; likewise, the human body and the entire saha world are not real.
Purna assumes that form and emptiness oppose and negate each other, but that is not the case. Within the tathagata-garbha, form and emptiness are non-dual and pervade the entire dharma realm. All forms, including the five elements, pervade the entire dharma realm, mutually interpenetrating and transforming into one another.