The Tenets of the Diamond Sutra

Looking at the entire Diamond Sutra, its overall purport is to break through marks, break through marks, break through marks — to break through all marks. It begins with breaking the four marks, and breaks through all dharma-marks. The scope of these dharma-marks is boundless and immeasurable: whatever sentient beings can touch, see, think of, imagine, or discuss is a non-mark, including all dharmas and all marks within the mundane world and the three realms — the mark of self, the mark of person, the mark of sentient being, the mark of life span, the mark of the śrāvaka, the mark of the pratyekabuddha, the mark of the bodhisattva, the Buddha's thirty-two marks and His complete bodily form, the mark of the Tathāgata, the mark of the great body; the mark of lands, the mark of dust motes, the mark of worlds, the mark of the composite one; the marks of sentient beings' minds, the mark of bodhisattvas' arising of bodhicitta, the mark of bodhisattvas adorning lands, the mark of bodhisattvas delivering sentient beings, the mark of all Buddhas expounding the Dharma, the mark of all Buddhas attaining the Dharma, the mark of all Buddhas attaining bodhi, the mark of the bodhisattvas' six pāramitās; and even the mark of prajñā-pāramitā, the mark of Buddha-dharma, the mark of the true reality of all dharmas, and so on and so forth. All marks are non-marks, non-non-marks; not dharma, not non-dharma.
And upon what basis are all these marks broken through? The basis is the unborn and unceasing vajra mind. Because this indestructible vajra mind exists, all the dharma-marks it gives rise to are non-marks — and, put more comprehensively, they are also non-non-marks. Therefore, the vajra prajñā mind is also called the great dhāraṇī gateway of one mark and no-mark: it upholds all marks and embraces all dharmas, causing all dharmas to be without self-nature and without self-mark; all dharmas are not dharma and not non-dharma; the world is empty, void, and illusorily empty.
The process and result of breaking through marks in the Diamond Sutra echo from afar the Perfect Penetration Through the Ear Faculty practiced by Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara: everything that can be emptied is emptied, leaving only the vajra prajñā mind that can never be emptied no matter what — not this shore, not the other shore, not not-the-other-shore, solitary without a companion, yet it is the one true dharma realm.

The Diamond Sutra also echoes from afar all the prajñā sūtras and Mahāyāna sūtras, mutually corroborating one another without the slightest discord: apart from emptiness there is only emptiness; emptiness carried to its end — not emptiness, not non-emptiness. Can people of this world understand and awaken to this? If they awaken to it, are there still any marks left in their minds, any attachment they still cling to? Of course, in between lies the path of realization spanning three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, requiring the breaking through of one mark after another, breaking through them all and restoring the original state, returning home to sit in stability — yet by then there is no home to return to, no ground to sit on, and no body with which to sit. Is this not a naked, utterly empty great dharma gateway of liberation? May people of this world quickly cast away one mark after another, quickly escape the suffocating feeling of being entangled and bound, and quickly cast off every burden!