The Essential Purport of the Diamond Sutra (Vajracchedikā-prajñāpāramitā Sūtra)

Throughout the entire Diamond Sutra, its purport is to break through marks, break through marks, break through marks—to break through all marks. Beginning with breaking the four marks, it breaks all dharma-marks. The scope of these dharma-marks is vast, immeasurable and boundless: 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 others, the mark of sentient beings, the mark of a life span, the mark of śrāvakas, the mark of pratyekabuddhas, the mark of bodhisattvas, 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 one composite; 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, neither dharma nor non-dharma.
And upon what basis are all these marks broken? The basis is the unborn and unceasing vajra mind (Vajracitta). Because this indestructible vajra mind exists, all the dharma-marks that arise from it are non-marks—and, to state it more completely, they are also non-non-marks. Therefore, the vajra prajñā mind is also called the great dhāraṇī gate of one mark and no-mark, holding all marks and embracing all dharmas, causing all dharmas to be without self-nature and without self-mark; all dharmas are neither dharma nor non-dharma, and the world is empty, void, and illusorily empty.
The process and result of breaking through marks in the Diamond Sutra echo from afar the Śūraṅgama method of the perfect penetration through the ear faculty of Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara: emptying everything that can be emptied, leaving only the vajra prajñā mind that can never be emptied no matter what—on the other shore, yet not the other shore, nor non-other-shore—solitary and without companion, yet it is the one true dharmadhātu.

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 is non-emptiness, non-non-emptiness. Can worldly people understand and accord with this? If they do accord with it, are there still any marks in their minds, is there still anything they grasp? Of course, in between lies a path of actual realization spanning three great asaṃkhyeya kalpas, requiring the breaking of marks one by one—breaking them all to restore 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 to sit there. Is this not a naked, utterly empty great dharma gate of liberation? May worldly people quickly discard mark after mark, quickly escape the suffocating feeling of being entangled and bound, and quickly cast off every burden!