Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
All that one perceives through the senses are merely superficial delusions. Only the buddhanature—the wondrous luminous true mind—is real; everything else is false.
“Ananda, you should know that these faculties are neither one nor six. Since beginningless time, because of inverted confusion and transmigration, the meaning of one and six has arisen within the perfect and luminous true nature.
“You, as a stream-enterer, have dissolved the six, though you have not yet eliminated the one. It is like the great empty space joined with many vessels. Because the shapes of the vessels differ, the spaces are named differently. Remove the vessels and observe space itself, and one may say that space is one.
“But how could that great empty space become either the same or different because of you? How much less could it truly be called one or not one?
“Thus you should understand that the six faculties of perception and function are likewise so.
From beginningless time, beings have generated delusion and inverted thinking through countless rebirths, giving rise to the concepts of one and six.
Ananda had not eliminated his habitual tendencies—the one thing he had not eliminated, although he had eliminated the six roots.
Sakyamuni Buddha compared this to the sky and the vessels through which one sees the sky. A frog sitting at the bottom of the well believes the sky is round because it can only see the sky through the circular opening of the well. By the same token, it is as if one looks at the sky through a square window and thinks the sky is square. Because we are deluded by appearances, we are like frogs at the bottom of the well.
The sky itself is empty; it is not the clouds, rain, snow, thunder, or lightning that appear in it. These are mere phenomena that arise and disappear, while the sky itself remains unchanged. Likewise, all phenomena perceived through the six roots are temporary appearances, and none of them are the real truth. Only the sky itself is the truth—and the sky represents the wondrous luminous true mind. Until one realizes the wondrous luminous true mind, all that one perceives are illusions.
One must understand this in order to penetrate the buddhadharma. The eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind deal only with outward appearances. For example, one person may appear stunningly beautiful with a nice figure, while another appears ugly and overweight. Yet if the flesh is removed, both are simply skeletons. Their outward appearances differ, but fundamentally they are the same. The sky is like this too—inherently empty in nature.
Lightning, thunder, wind, cloud, rain, hail, snow are all temporary phenomena that only arise at times. The same applies to our six roots. The only real thing is our buddhanature, the wondrous luminous true mind.
Sakyamuni Buddha teaches everything is ultimately empty. What one sees with the eyes, hears with the ears, smells with the nose, tastes with the tongue, feels with the body, and thinks with the mind are only superficial and false.
Thus, the six roots are neither truly one nor six.