All Dharmas Have No Master and No Agent

Original text of the Sutra Spoken by the Buddha on the Ten Wholesome Karmic Paths:诸法集起。毕竟无主。无我我所。虽各随业。所现不同。而实于中。无有作者。故一切法。皆不思议。自性如幻。

Explanation: The accumulation and arising of all dharmas in the world ultimately has no sovereign, no master, and there is no self-nature or self-belonging nature. Although these dharmas all arise in accordance with their own different karmic seeds and karmic conditions, the dharma-marks that manifest are different. Yet in the process of these dharmas arising and ceasing, there truly is no creator; therefore all these dharmas are inconceivable, and the self-nature of dharmas is like an illusion.

The gathering of dharmas means that karmic actions are collected together, forming karmic seeds; after the karmic seeds mature, with the assistance of karmic conditions, the various dharmas are born. Yet the birth of dharmas has no one acting as a sovereign within it, controlling the arising, abiding, changing, and ceasing of the dharmas—there is no controller. These dharmas have no self-nature; they are selfless, and they do not belong to a self. For example, in the gathering of the aggregate of form—who makes the aggregate of form gather? The tathāgatagarbha has no mental activity of gathering and does not govern the aggregate of form; the manas is also illusory and does not govern the aggregate of form; the karmic seeds and karmic conditions are also illusory and have no mind of gathering—yet the aggregate of form inexplicably appears. Is the aggregate of form the self? It is not the self, because it has no autonomy and is empty. Does the aggregate of form belong to the self? It also does not belong to the self, because it is empty. The aggregates of feeling, perception, volitional formations, and consciousness are all like this, and so are the six sense faculties, the six sense objects, and the six consciousnesses.

Although sentient beings A, B, C, and D all appear in the cycle of the six realms in accordance with their own karmic actions and karmic seeds, the appearance, identity, status, merit, ethnicity, and so forth that they manifest are all different; yet truly within these manifest marks there is no creator—no one has fabricated the appearances of sentient beings' cycles through the six realms. Therefore, A's heavenly-realm appearance is inconceivable; the self-nature of the heavenly appearance is illusory and transformed, and there is no substantial deva. B's human appearance is inconceivable; the self-nature of the human is illusory and transformed, and there is no substantial human. C's hell appearance and D's hungry-ghost appearance are both like this—inconceivable, with a self-nature that is illusory and transformed, without substance.

Understanding these dharmas with the mind consciousness may not be too difficult, but the mind consciousness can only grasp a rough outline and does not know the inner details; that is to say, the mind consciousness cannot know the specific causes or the specific operations of the dharmas. It is like looking at flowers through the fog—blurry and indistinct. Only by using the manas to deliberate deeply in meditative concentration (samādhi) can one penetrate and comprehend, seeing all details completely without remainder, knowing why things are so; from then on one has personally realized the dharma, fathoming the dharma to its very source, and will never again look at flowers through the fog or scratch an itch through a boot. For any dharma, the more the manas deliberates, the more interesting it becomes, the more one wants to investigate it thoroughly, the more wisdom one has, and the deeper one's meditative concentration becomes; the whole person becomes enraptured—this is the joy of exploring the truth. Abandon the mind consciousness's shallow understanding and learn the manas's deep deliberation, and one will become ever more wise, one's thinking and logic ever clearer, one's character ever more steady and sagacious; all difficult problems will no longer be difficult and will all be readily solved.