The Enlightened One of the Śūraṅgama Breakthrough

To establish knowing within perception is the root of ignorance. When perception is without seeing, that is nirvāṇa. In the past, someone repunctuated these two sentences from the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: "Perception established, knowing is the root of ignorance; perception absent, seeing that is nirvāṇa." Afterward, he attained enlightenment. What did he realize? The meaning of the first sentence is that having the knowing which perceives the six dusts (objects of sense) and establishing this knowing as real constitutes ignorance.

This knowing is an impermanent, illusory dharma—it is the knowing of the seventh consciousness. It includes the knowing that perceives the dharmas (mental objects) within various meditative states, which is the knowing of the mental consciousness, the knowing that one has entered samādhi. If one mistakenly considers this state of mental emptiness to be identical to the emptiness of the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddha-nature), believing it to be the state of enlightenment, then that is a misapprehension. This erroneous grasping precisely constitutes ignorance. The meaning of the second sentence is that there is a mind devoid of knowing and perception, unaware of the six dusts, unperceiving the six dusts. This mind is the nirvāṇa mind. Nirvāṇa neither arises nor ceases. It does not engage with the six dusts, does not give rise to afflictions, is free from ignorance, and is inherently pure. Discovering this mind, realizing this mind, is enlightenment—the realization of the inherently pure nirvāṇa mind. Thus, that person awakened to the Way, and later generations named him "Pò Léngyán" (The Śūraṅgama Breaker).