An Overview of the Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra

The Diamond Sutra is the essence of the six hundred scrolls of the Great Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra; the entire text expounds the true nature of the indestructible vajra mind (vajra-citta). The vajra (diamond) is the hardest treasure in the world—no one, with any force, can destroy it; on the contrary, it can destroy everything. Likewise, the tathāgatagarbha, like the vajra, is indestructible, yet it can annihilate all dharmas. How does it annihilate them? Because the indestructible vajra mind exists, even though all dharmas exist, they are empty; if the tathāgatagarbha withdraws the seeds of the seven great elements, all dharmas vanish immediately, and even the appearance of illusory existence is extinguished. It could not be more fitting that the World-Honored One used the nature of the vajra as a metaphor for the true suchness mind-substance of every sentient being. The unborn and undying nature of the true suchness mind-substance far surpasses the durability of the vajra, for the vajra is a worldly material form; when the world is destroyed, it too ceases to exist. But the vajra mind, the tathāgatagarbha, is not destroyed along with the world, because the vajra mind tathāgatagarbha does not fear water—water cannot drown it; it does not fear fire—fire cannot burn it; it does not fear wind—wind cannot blow it apart. The three calamities can do nothing to Him, and even the most modern weapons can do nothing to Him. The vajra minds of all sentient beings in the worlds of the ten directions are all like this: unborn and undying, never destroyed.

It is because of the existence of the vajra mind that sentient beings' five-aggregate physical bodies are born and perish life after life. Only if sentient beings eradicate the view of self (satkāya-dṛṣṭi), extinguish self-grasping, and completely sever all craving and attachment to the three realms (the desire realm, the form realm, and the formless realm), and at the end of life enter nirvāṇa without remainder, extinguishing the five aggregates and the eighteen realms, will the five aggregates of future lives never arise again. But the vajra mind-substance still does not perish; it exists independently, relying on no external conditions. That is why the vajra mind is called the self-sufficient mind: it can exist alone without depending on other conditions, and needs no one to give birth to or manifest it. However, although bodhisattvas attain the fruit of liberation, they do not enter the definitive stage; before the seventh bhūmi, bodhisattvas do not realize the fourth fruit, and thus will not enter nirvāṇa without remainder. Bodhisattvas must, life after life, make use of the five-aggregate physical body to cultivate and study the Buddha Way, benefiting themselves and benefiting others, until they attain buddhahood, never ceasing their practice of benefiting others.

Why can sentient beings, by studying Buddhism and cultivating practice, become Buddhas? It is because of the cooperation of this vajra mind, which can store the seeds of wholesome karma; when the seeds are perfectly matured, one becomes a Buddha. Even bacteria too small to be seen by the naked eye possess this vajra mind. This mind is the true substance for becoming a Buddha, the dharmakāya that gives birth to all dharmas. One sentient being has one vajra mind, and one vajra mind can accomplish one Buddha. Since the worlds of the ten directions contain sentient beings beyond number, there will in the future be Buddhas, World-Honored Ones beyond number. A physical body held and sustained by a vajra mind is called a sentient being: it has the life activities of the five aggregates and has bodily, verbal, and mental actions. An object without a vajra mind operating within it personally, and without consciousness-seeds being born, is called an insentient thing. Mountains, rivers, the great earth, flowers, grass, and trees have no five aggregates (form, feeling, perception, volitional formations, consciousness), nor any bodily, verbal, or mental actions; they are not sentient beings, and therefore cannot become Buddhas.

The vajra mind is different from things like the "soul" spoken of by the non-Buddhists. The non-Buddhists also believe that sentient beings all have a mind-substance that never perishes and can go on to future lives, but the mind-substance they refer to is, in terms of its nature, the mind consciousness, which arises and ceases and changes; it is suffering, empty, impermanent, and non-self, with a very strong capacity for discriminating good and evil; therefore it is not the ever-enduring vajra mind. The mind consciousness has times when it ceases: it ceases in sleep, ceases in a coma, ceases when entering the samādhi of no perception, ceases when entering the cessation attainment (nirodha-samāpatti), and ceases even more completely at death. Since it can cease, it is not a real dharma and cannot go on to future lives.

The nature of the vajra mind is utterly different from that of the mind consciousness: it never perishes or is lost, and has never disappeared for even a single instant—otherwise sentient beings would die on the spot. He does not discriminate between wholesome and unwholesome, true and false, you, me, him, or it; He always accords with the mental activities of sentient beings, cooperates with the seven consciousnesses, makes great generosity (dāna) to sentient beings, and seeks no reward whatsoever, working without dwelling in any dharma until the end of the future, selflessly and without self. This is the Buddha mind. He has countless names; the definitive Buddhist sūtras describe Him everywhere, saying that He is the mind of intrinsically pure self-nature, the tathāgatagarbha, the Ālayavijñāna, the retributive consciousness (vipāka-vijñāna), the undefiled consciousness (amala-vijñāna), the eighth consciousness, true suchness (tathatā), ultimate reality, the true limit (bhūtakoṭi), the original limit, the boundless, the one true dharma realm, and so on—too many to enumerate.

He pervades all stages (the three realms and nine levels), all places (the twelve sense bases, āyatanas), all realms (the eighteen realms, dhātus), all times, and all dharmas. On whichever dharma He does not operate, that dharma does not exist. All worlds of the ten directions are manifested by Him; there is no dharma not contained within His mind-substance. He is the Tathāgata Buddha; no dharma has ever escaped from the palm of the Tathāgata Buddha's hand. The Buddha said in the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: 虚空在汝心内如片云点泰清里，so how vast this mind must be. But if there is a "great," it is still small; He is neither great nor small.

To realize where this mind appears, where it exists, and how it operates—this is the enlightenment of the Chan school. If one merely understands the principle by following the words of the text, without knowing exactly where He is, unable to observe how He operates and how He gives rise to the five aggregates, then it does not count as realization; it is merely a similar understanding at the level of the mind consciousness. How should one, in studying Buddhism and cultivating practice, realize the vajra mind and clearly see the function of this mind? One must use the method of investigating Chan. Each of the seventeen hundred gong'an (public cases) of the Chan school is a finger pointing to Him. From the time the Buddha was in the world down to the records of the gong'an of the great virtuous ones of the Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties, all are fingers pointing at the moon, and not a single word departs from this mind.