The Profound Meaning of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sutra from the Consciousness-Only Perspective (Second Edition)

Chapter 3  Subhūti's Request, Two

Subhūti is also known as Subhūti (Sudatta's name "Good Appearance"), the foremost among Śākyamuni Buddha's disciples in understanding emptiness. While still in his mother's womb, he already knew that all dharmas are empty and quiescent; this was due to the profound wholesome roots accumulated over many kalpas in previous lives. He entered the womb, dwelt in the womb, and emerged from the womb without delusion or inversion. At the moment of his birth, all the family's treasures vanished and disappeared, and a few days later they all reappeared on their own, demonstrating that everything is empty, and even existence is only false existence. Subhūti is honorifically called an "Elder"; an Elder refers to a person of prestige and virtue among the assembly, one who is not in accord with the three poisons and afflictions. Subhūti attained the fruit of an arhat by cultivating the emptiness dharma of the Small Vehicle, but when the World-Honored One expounded the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, he turned his mind toward the Great Vehicle and walked the bodhisattva path. When the Buddha expounds a sūtra, he always relies on some causal condition as an introduction, using the occasion to expound an entire sūtra; it is rare for him to teach without someone requesting it, unless it is especially important. This sūtra was requested by Subhūti.

Original text:时。长老须菩提在大众中。即从座起。偏袒右肩。右膝着地。合掌恭敬而白佛言。希有世尊。如来善护念诸菩萨。善付嘱诸菩萨。

Explanation: Just after the World-Honored One finished his meal and sat down cross-legged, Subhūti rose from his seat among the assembly, bared his right shoulder, knelt on his right knee, pressed his palms together respectfully, and asked the Buddha: World-Honored One, rare and hard to behold, the Tathāgata has always been skilled at protecting and being mindful of all bodhisattvas, and skilled at entrusting and instructing all bodhisattvas.

Why is the World-Honored One rare and hard to encounter?

Subhūti first praised the World-Honored One as the rarest sage in the world, very hard to behold. The World-Honored One is indeed rare: a trichiliocosm (three-thousandfold great world) has only one Buddha. A world with one sun and moon—from the hells beneath the four great oceans, to the earth, to Mount Sumeru, up to the six heavens of the desire realm—is called a small world. One thousand small worlds plus the first dhyāna heaven of the form realm constitute a small thousand-world; one thousand small thousand-worlds plus the second dhyāna heaven of the form realm constitute a middle thousand-world; one thousand middle thousand-worlds plus the heavens of the third dhyāna and above constitute a great thousand-world. Such a vast world has only one Buddha, and the duration of his manifested presence in the world is extremely brief, while the interval between two successive Buddhas is very long. The shortest interval is between Śākyamuni Buddha and Maitreya Buddha, at 567 million years. For longer intervals, often for several great kalpas or even dozens of great kalpas, no Buddha appears in the world, and sometimes even longer periods pass without a Buddha appearing. From this we can see that the World-Honored One is indeed rare and hard to encounter.

The appellation "Tathāgata" is spoken from the perspective of the nature-body of sentient beings. The Tathāgata comes from suchness (tathatā); suchness is a nature-body that is real and immovable in suchness. Where there is suchness, there is a Tathāgata; without suchness, there is no Tathāgata. In the Buddha's tathāgatagarbha, the ignorance of the seven consciousnesses has been completely severed, never again to be perfumed or to undergo change—this is called the suchness of permanence, bliss, self, and purity. But the tathāgatagarbha of sentient beings contains seeds of unwholesome karma, harboring the ignorance of a single thought, beginningless ignorance, and ignorance as numerous as dust and sand, with seeds of segmented birth-and-death (pariccheda-maraṇa) and transformational birth-and-death (parināma-maraṇa); it is also called the storehouse consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna). Through cultivation, the seeds of unwholesome karma in sentient beings' tathāgatagarbha steadily decrease, the seeds of wholesome karma steadily increase, ignorance diminishes bit by bit, and enlightenment increases bit by bit; the tathāgatagarbha as a whole constantly undergoes change, so it is not yet true suchness, and differs to some degree from the Buddha's suchness.

However, the substance of the tathāgatagarbha is immovable in suchness: when forms come, it does not see; when sounds come, it does not hear; when scents come, it does not smell; when flavors come, it does not taste; when tactile objects come, it does not touch; when mental objects come, it does not know. It is completely unmoved by the realms of the six sense objects, never gives rise to mental activity or thought, is not turned by the six sense objects, and possesses the nature of reality and suchness. The tathāgatagarbha is sometimes also called suchness; its self-substance does not change, which is called "suchness without alteration." The tathāgatagarbha itself is like a clean cup, and the seven transforming consciousnesses are like the water in the cup. Water can be pure or defiled, so the cup of water is divided into the undefiled and the defiled. Sentient beings' seven transforming consciousnesses are defiled; the seeds are stored in the cup of the true mind, so the true mind harbors filth, and the water poured out is dirty water. Therefore sentient beings' true mind is called the tathāgatagarbha, Ālayavijñāna, vipāka-consciousness, and so on; whereas the Buddha's true mind has no defilement and is called the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna). Cultivation is the purification of the seven transforming consciousnesses and the breaking of ignorance; to break ignorance one must study the principles of the tathāgatagarbha, and when one has fully penetrated them, one becomes a Buddha.

How does the Tathāgata skillfully protect and be mindful of all bodhisattvas?

A sentient being begins cultivation from the ten faiths stage of an ordinary person, proceeding through the ten abodes, ten practices, and ten dedications, then to the ten bhūmis, and the stages of vigilance (māyā) and wondrous awakening—fifty-two stages in all. At every stage, one cannot be apart from the Buddha's blessing and protection; otherwise one would be blocked by karmic obstructions and unable to progress in perfuming cultivation. Thus it is said that the Buddha's grace is vast and mighty; without becoming a Buddha, there is no way to repay it. So can the Buddha protect and be mindful of so many sentient beings? He can protect and be mindful of them all, because the Buddha is also called omniscience (sarvākārajñatā), with wisdom, virtue, and abilities perfectly complete; there is not a single dharma in the mundane or supramundane that he does not know or understand. The Buddha knows the minds of every sentient being in the worlds of the ten directions, knows the events of every sentient being's countless kalpas, and even when it rains simultaneously throughout the worlds of the ten directions, the Buddha knows the total number of raindrops. Since the Buddha can know the minds of sentient beings, he can protect and support their cultivation, helping them pass through every stage until they attain buddhahood.

From the ten faiths stage, bodhisattvas begin cultivating faith in the Three Jewels, learning about the Buddha's thirty-two major marks and eighty minor marks, the causes and conditions of his cultivation of the bodhisattva path over kalpas, the merit and content of the Buddha's ten epithets, and the formation and scope of Buddha-lands, so as to give rise to a mind of aspiration. Then they learn the rudimentary contents of the Tripitaka and twelve divisions of scriptures taught by the Buddha, the meaning of the three refuges and five precepts, and then learn about the Sangha Jewel—what are ordinary monks, resident monks, and noble monks, as well as the Three Jewels of a single essence and the Three Jewels of self-nature. Thus progressing from blind faith to reverent faith and devout faith, they arrive at correct faith: believing that the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha truly abide in the worlds of the ten directions, believing that all sentient beings in the ten directions possess the suchness of buddha-nature and can all become Buddhas, and that they themselves can also become Buddhas. When faith in attaining buddhahood is complete, the ten faiths stage is fulfilled. How long this takes depends on the depth of one's wholesome roots and merit and the degree of one's diligence; all of this cultivation cannot be apart from the Buddha's protection.

After this stage of cultivation is complete, the Buddha will protect and guide the bodhisattva into the cultivation of the three stages of worthies. At the first abode, one cultivates generosity (dāna), accumulating the provisions of merit as provisions for the Path in preparation for seeing the mind and seeing the nature; at the second abode, one cultivates precepts, cutting off evil and cultivating good, transforming the mind toward purity, and not falsely grasping at conditions; at the third abode, one cultivates patience, including patience toward worldly dharmas, affairs, people, and principles, and patience toward the Great Vehicle's principle of the non-arising of the tathāgatagarbha; at the fourth abode, one cultivates diligence—generosity, precepts, patience, and meditative concentration all require diligence; at the fifth abode, one cultivates meditative concentration, being able to abide unmoved in a state of concentration and in the principles of the Great and Small Vehicles, reaching preparatory concentration (anāgamya-samādhi), with the ability to contemplate the emptiness of the Small Vehicle and the emptiness (śūnyatā) mind of the Great Vehicle; at the sixth abode, one cultivates prajñā wisdom, and when it is relatively complete, one can see the mind; after giving rise to the contemplation of illusion, one knows that all dharmas are false and illusory, knowing that all dharmas are like those conjured by a magician, and like clouds and mist in the sky, unreal.

After completing the ten abodes, one enters the ten practices, attaining the contemplation of mirages, perceiving all dharmas as empty and illusory like a mirage. The phenomenon of a mirage is like this: when the sun shines on a sandy beach, heat rises and forms an illusory scene, as if there were buildings, carriages, horses, and people, and the people and horses even seem to be moving; but upon approaching, one sees nothing at all. The phenomenon of a mirage is like this: a deer, being extremely thirsty, gazes from afar at the sandy beach and hallucinates that it sees a river; running over to look, there is not a drop of water on the beach. Sentient beings are like that thirsty deer, falsely seeing all dharmas.

After this dharma is cultivated, one passes the third barrier of the Chan school—the barrier of birth and death—and then enters the ten dedications to cultivate the contemplation of dream, realizing that all dharmas are like a dream. When dreaming, all the people, events, and things in the dream seem real, and so in the dream one experiences joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness, grasping at and clinging to the dream; upon waking, not a single hair can be found, though tears of mingled sorrow and joy still hang on one's cheeks. Sentient beings when awake are just as when dreaming, utterly unable to perceive the falsity and unreality of the world—coming and going within the dream, never awakening. At this point, after additionally cultivating some wisdom of the varieties of paths, one enters the first bhūmi and becomes a noble one; one-third of the path to buddhahood has been completed.

Throughout this entire process of cultivation, the bodhisattva has never been apart from the blessing and protection of all Buddhas, life after life. When the bodhisattva craves worldly pleasures and forgets cultivation, the Buddha warns him with impermanence; when the bodhisattva must leave home to cultivate, the Buddha secretly obstructs his path in worldly dharmas; when the bodhisattva is engrossed in the Small Vehicle, the Buddha guides him onto the Great Vehicle path; when the bodhisattva has the ability to deliver sentient beings, the Buddha arranges for him to go to karmically connected worlds in the ten directions to deliver beings; when the bodhisattva inadvertently falls into the three evil destinies, the Buddha personally or sends bodhisattvas to rescue him; when the bodhisattva has attained the fourth fruit of arhatship and is about to enter nirvāṇa, the Buddha uses skillful means to persuade the bodhisattva to remain in the world, benefiting self and others until attaining buddhahood without entering nirvāṇa—all of these are the Buddha's protection and entrustment of bodhisattvas. The Buddha's compassion surpasses that of parents by countless billions of times beyond reckoning; the Buddha's grace cannot be fully told, nor fully praised.

This is the protection and mindfulness of sentient beings by the Sambhogakāya and Nirmāṇakāya Buddhas with visible marks. Most important is the protection and mindfulness of the Dharmakāya Buddha—that protection is no trivial matter and is indispensable. Throughout the bodhisattva's cultivation over three countless great kalpas, the Dharmakāya Buddha of his own Tathāgata protects and is mindful of the bodhisattva at every moment, never departing for an instant, providing all the seeds needed for the bodhisattvas' cultivation of the Path, storing the seeds of Path-karma obtained through the bodhisattvas' cultivation, without the slightest deficiency or omission. Only when wholesome karma seeds are complete in this way can the bodhisattva attain buddhahood.

Original text:世尊。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。云何应住。云何降伏其心。佛言。善哉善哉。须菩提。如汝所说。如来善护念诸菩萨。善付嘱诸菩萨。汝今谛听。当为汝说。善男子善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。应如是住。如是降伏其心。唯然世尊。愿乐欲闻。

Explanation: Subhūti asked again: World-Honored One, when good men and good women give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, how should they abide? How should they subdue their minds? The World-Honored One replied: Excellent, excellent, Subhūti. Just as you have said, the Tathāgata is indeed skilled at protecting and being mindful of all bodhisattvas, and skilled at entrusting and instructing all bodhisattvas. Now listen carefully; I shall explain for you: after good men and good women have given rise to the bodhi mind of attaining buddhahood, they should abide in this way and subdue their minds in this way. Subhūti then declared: Yes, World-Honored One, I am most eager and delighted to hear your teaching.