Vipaśyin Buddha's Dharma Transmission Verse

Original text:身从无相中受生，犹如幻出诸形象。幻人心识本来无，罪福皆空无所住。

Explanation: The first line, "the body receives birth from within the formless," refers to the material body being the aggregate of form, which can obstruct sentient beings' consciousness, causing them to take the false as true. Sentient beings have always believed that this material body is the self, that it is real. "Formless" refers to the Ālayavijñāna, the eighth consciousness, the tathāgatagarbha. This is the true mind, without form or appearance, having no marks of form, sound, smell, taste, touch, or dharmas, and no mark whatsoever within the three realms. It is like empty space yet is not empty space; empty space is a dharma that is unreal, an illusion, whereas this mind truly exists—it is ultimate reality (dharmatā), possessing true essence and true function.

The true mind can produce the myriad dharmas, including the material body; the material body receives birth from within this mind. Because sentient beings' grasping at self is unceasing, and the manas clings to itself, after death there is an intermediate body (antarā-bhava). Upon encountering karmically connected parents, the manas, together with the eighth consciousness, enters the womb, forming nāma-rūpa, that is, the fertilized egg. Because the eighth consciousness possesses the seeds of the four great elements—earth, water, fire, and wind—upon contact with the four great elements in the mother's body, it transforms and generates the fertilized egg, which changes every seven days, growing a head, limbs, eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body. At around five months, the conscious mind emerges, discriminating its living environment. When the six faculties are complete, the eighth consciousness blows the karmic wind, and the fetus is born head-first from the womb. The eighth consciousness then absorbs the four great elements to transform the infant into a child, a youth, an adult, and an elderly person, and finally death. Therefore, the material body is transformed and generated from within the eighth consciousness, and the eighth consciousness is formless—formless, yet it can transform and produce all forms.

The second line: "as if conjured forth in various forms." The material body manifested by the eighth consciousness is like a magical conjuration—from nothing at all to a fertilized egg, and then to a material body as large as an adult's, even producing bodies as large as an elephant, a dragon, or the golden-winged garuḍa bird. It is like a magician suddenly conjuring a beautiful woman in empty space, or like a painter freely depicting landscapes and figures on a blank canvas. It is like white clouds in the sky gathering and dispersing to form a cat, a dog, or a flower. These conjured things come from emptiness and go to emptiness; they simply cannot be grasped or held, and no matter how one clings to them, they will vanish and depart.

The third line: "the conjured person's consciousness is originally nonexistent." Within the fertilized egg, sentient beings originally have no six consciousnesses and no capacity for discrimination. Only at around five months does the sixth consciousness (mind consciousness) arise, followed by the ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, and body consciousness; only seven days after birth can the eye consciousness discriminate. These discriminating consciousnesses arise and cease moment by moment and are not real; within a single instant there are eighty-one thousand arisings and ceasings of seeds, by which sentient beings can discriminate the six sense objects. Each seed is transmitted by the Ālayavijñāna; if one or several seeds fail to be transmitted in the middle, the discriminating function of the consciousness would cease to exist. For example, for a lamp to shine there must be electric current; the current is formed by electrons. One electron arises and ceases, then the next electron immediately arises and ceases; countless electrons connect in succession to form a current, which passes through the lamp, and the bulb lights up.

The seeds of consciousness are just like those electrons. The formation of a stream of water is likewise formed by drop after drop of water connected without interruption. The seeds of consciousness are like those water droplets. The water stream is channeled out by a pump; the electrons are output by a generator. The Ālayavijñāna is like the generator and the pump, transmitting out seed after seed of consciousness—eighty-one thousand consciousness seeds in a single instant, connected one after another without interruption, forming the conscious mind. With the activity of the conscious mind, there is the function of discrimination. If the Ālayavijñāna departs and stops working, the conscious mind does not arise, and discrimination is also absent. The body is then just a piece of wood.

The fourth line: "offenses and merits are both empty and abide nowhere." Offensive karma and meritorious karma are both created by the deluded mind. At the same time the deluded mind performs bodily formations, verbal formations, and mental formations—whether wholesome, unwholesome, or neither wholesome nor unwholesome (avyākṛta)—the Ālayavijñāna records and stores them all. When the karmic conditions ripen in a future life, the Ālayavijñāna outputs the karmic seeds, and sentient beings undergo retribution. But the five aggregates undergoing the retribution have changed; they are not those of the previous life. Both the one who creates karma and the one who undergoes retribution are arising-and-ceasing, illusory, and unreal, and offensive karma and meritorious karma are likewise arising-and-ceasing and illusory. Once meritorious reward is enjoyed, it is gone; once offensive karma has been undergone or repented of, it disappears—all are conditioned dharmas subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent dharmas.

Take, for example, the karma of false speech: before it is committed, it is not stored anywhere; after it is committed, the words are gone and the karmic action has vanished; and after vanishing, it has not gone anywhere. Yet the entire course of the action is completely recorded by the Ālayavijñāna. The dharma of false speech is illusory—then who is it that speaks falsely? The body cannot speak falsely, the mouth cannot speak falsely, the tongue cannot speak falsely—otherwise dead people could also speak falsely. The tongue consciousness and the mind consciousness cannot speak falsely, and moreover they arise and cease from moment to moment. The manas also does not speak and cannot speak falsely. And the Ālayavijñāna has no mouth and no tongue, and even less can it speak falsely. There is fundamentally no one who speaks falsely; the karma of false speech is therefore illusory.

Sentient beings are conjured forth by the Ālayavijñāna, and a conjured, false person, like a robot or a puppet, performs karmic actions that are also illusory. One cannot pass judgment on them; even if judgment were passed, they would not undergo it. Conjured sentient beings are the same. The illusory nature of offenses and merits can be proven by many facts. Take the case of King Ajātaśatru: King Ajātaśatru killed his father, and when his karmic retribution manifested, he went to see the World-Honored One. The World-Honored One analyzed for King Ajātaśatru the illusory nature of the dharma of "father"; thus the dharma of killing one's father was illusory. After Ajātaśatru understood this, his offensive karma disappeared, and at the end of his life, not only did he not fall into the Avīci hell, he was even reborn in the land of bliss (sukhāvatī). This shows the illusory nature of offensive and meritorious karma.

Another example: for one who has realized the first fruit of the srotāpanna, or one who has attained seeing the mind, the offensive karma of the three evil destinies accumulated over beginningless kalpas is eliminated, and in the future one will never fall into the three evil destinies to undergo retribution, only suffering among humans. All dharmas, including offensive and meritorious karma, are subject to arising and ceasing, impermanent, empty, and illusory. By deeply analyzing this principle, one will awaken to the Mahāyāna truth of non-arising and become a bodhisattva of true meaning.