Bodhisattvas Should Deliver Sentient Beings with the Threefold Emptiness

Original text:尔时须菩提白佛言。世尊。善男子。善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。云何应住。云何降伏其心。佛告须菩提。善男子。善女人。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心。当生如是心。我应灭度一切众生。灭度一切众生已。而无有一众生实灭度者。何以故。须菩提。若菩萨有我相人相众生相寿者相，则非菩萨。所以者何。须菩提。实无有法。发阿耨多罗三藐三菩提心者。

Explanation: Subhūti asked the Buddha: World-Honored One, when good men and good women give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi, how should they abide, and how should they subdue their minds? The Buddha told Subhūti: Good men and good women who give rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi should give rise to such a mind: I shall liberate all sentient beings, and after all sentient beings have been liberated, yet in reality there is not a single sentient being who has been liberated. Why should one give rise to such a mind? Subhūti, if a bodhisattva has the mark of self, the mark of a person, the mark of sentient beings, or the mark of a life span in his mind, then he is not a true bodhisattva. Why is he not a true bodhisattva? Subhūti, because in the world there truly is no dharma called "giving rise to the mind of anuttarā-samyak-saṃbodhi," and there is no one who gives rise to the bodhi mind; if a person has the mark of self, the mark of a person, the mark of sentient beings, and the mark of a life span, he has not eradicated the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), and he is not a bodhisattva.

When bodhisattvas give rise to the mind to deliver sentient beings, with what state of mind should they deliver sentient beings? Bodhisattvas delivering sentient beings should have the three wheels as empty of essence (trimaṇḍala-śūnyatā); they should not have the mark of self, the mark of a person, the mark of sentient beings, or the mark of a life span, and should deliver sentient beings with an empty mind of no self, no person, no sentient beings, and no life span. Because the mark of self is empty, there is no real self to deliver sentient beings; because the mark of a person and the mark of sentient beings are empty, there are no sentient beings being delivered; thus the matter of "I deliver sentient beings" is empty, not truly existent. If a bodhisattva clings to the notion that "I have delivered sentient beings" and "there are sentient beings whom I have transformed and delivered," then he has not realized no-self, his mind is not empty, and he is not a true bodhisattva. Sentient beings are empty—how can they be delivered? The self is empty—how can it deliver them? Therefore, although the bodhisattva has liberated all sentient beings, in the ground of actual principle, not a single sentient being has been delivered.

The person who gives rise to the bodhi mind is empty; the act of giving rise to the bodhi mind is empty, illusory—the phenomena exist but the principle does not; the existence is false existence. Yet by cultivating through this illusory phenomenon, one can attain buddhahood; the matter of attaining buddhahood is also empty and illusory. In the ground of actual principle, there is no buddha to be attained, and no ordinary being to be obtained; everything is like a dream, an illusion, a bubble, a shadow—void and ethereal, neither true nor false, yet both true and false. True or illusory, real or empty—do not labor to grasp them. The deeds must be done, the mind must be empty. Bodhisattvas must not only deliver sentient beings with the three wheels as empty of essence; in practicing generosity (dāna) and all the other myriad practices of the six pāramitās, they must likewise have the three wheels as empty of essence. Only by being empty all the way through does one truly arrive home.