Surangama Sutra Exposition
by Living Buddha Lian Sheng, Grandmaster Sheng-Yen Lu
Ananda questions how one can attain the Tathagata’s eternal fruition if the six roots and the thinking mind are ultimately empty. If there is no cause for cultivation, how can there be any effect?
Ananda said to the Buddha, “World-Honored One, as the Buddha has taught, when one seeks to awaken the mind at the causal ground and aspires to attain permanence, it must correspond in name and nature to the fruition ground.
“World-Honored One, in the fruition ground, there are bodhi, nirvana, true suchness, buddhanature, amala consciousness, the empty tathagatagarbha, and the great perfect mirror wisdom. These seven names, though different in terms, are similarly are pure and complete, with an essence firm and solid like the vajra king, eternally abiding and indestructible.
“If this seeing and hearing are apart from light and darkness, movement and stillness, openness and obstruction, they ultimately have no substance. They are like the thinking mind: apart from its previous objects, it has never truly existed. How then can one take this ultimately severed and extinguished thing as the cause of cultivation, and expect to attain the Tathagata’s seven eternal abiding fruits?
“World-Honored One, if apart from light and darkness, seeing is ultimately empty, and if without previous objects, the self-nature of thought is extinguished, then whether moving forward or backward in this cycle, and examining it in the most subtle way, there is originally no mind of mine and no mental factors belonging to my mind.
“Then who is there to establish the cause and seek supreme awakening? Previously, the Tathagata said that it is clear, pure, perfect, and eternal. But now this seems to go against your sincere words and would ultimately become mere idle theory.
“How can the Tathagata be one who speaks true words? I only pray that you will extend your great compassion and open my ignorance and doubts.”
Ananda questions how cultivation is possible if the six roots and the thinking mind are ultimately extinguished. Since every effect must have a corresponding cause, he wonders what remains to serve as the cause for attaining the Tathagata’s fruition. If the arising and ceasing mind cannot be used to realize the non-arising and non-ceasing, how can enlightenment ever be attained?
What Ananda said makes sense because, fundamentally, there is nothing. How can we cultivate using the arising and ceasing mind—the six roots—when there is no cause to begin with? How can we expect to attain the Tathagata’s seven eternal abiding fruits? If we depart from light and darkness, seeing is ultimately empty. Without the six dusts, there is fundamentally nothing to see. Even buddhanature is originally non-existent. There is no mind and no thoughts. What, then, can we use as the cause to seek the fruition of the Tathagata? Only when there is a cause, is there an effect. If we have no sensations, what are we practicing?
When we are seated here, what are we thinking? We are thinking about attaining buddhahood. When Grandmaster first met the layman Li Bingnan, he asked Grandmaster why he want to study Buddhism. Grandmaster replied that he studied Buddhism to attain buddhahood, and Li Bingnan said nothing. The mind still gives rise to the thought of studying Buddhism. If there were no mind, what would there be to study?
The mind cannot be found. Huike once said that his mind was afflicted, to which Bodhidharma replied, “Where is your mind?” Huike answered that he could not find it. Bodhidharma then replied, “That’s right. The mind is nowhere to be found.” When the mind is nowhere to be found, we have found the mind. The heart-mind does not refer to the physical heart or the mind consciousness inside the brain.