The Profound Meaning of the Diamond Sutra from the Consciousness-Only Perspective (46)

Original text: 何以故。是诸众生无复我相人相众生相寿者相。无法相亦无非法相。

Explanation: The World-Honored One said: Why is this so? It is because these sentient beings, who are able to not cling to the physical marks of the Tathāgata and who know that all marks are false and illusory, have long since been free of the mark of self, the mark of person, the mark of sentient being, and the mark of life span. They first broke through the four marks, and then went on to break through all marks of dharmas, reaching the state of no-marks. Because the self-natured pure mind originally contains not a single mark of dharma, all the marks it manifests are empty and illusory.

Dharmas are divided into conditioned dharmas and unconditioned dharmas, dharmas arising from conditions and dharmas not arising from conditions. The five aggregates are dharmas, the eighteen realms are dharmas, the three realms are all dharmas, and suchness is also a dharma — an unconditioned dharma. Whatever can be cognized by a person is a dharma; whether visible or invisible, existence is dharma. There are true dharmas and false dharmas, arising-and-ceasing dharmas and non-arising-non-ceasing dharmas, dharmas formed by causes and conditions and dharmas that exist innately and are not formed by causes and conditions — they differ from every angle and in every aspect.

Dharmas include dharmas of causes and conditions and dharmas not of causes and conditions. Dharmas of causes and conditions are empty, that is, illusory; dharmas not of causes and conditions are dharmas that exist from the very beginning, that is, true dharmas, dharmas that do not perish. Whatever dharma directly points to the attainment of buddhahood is a definitive dharma; the dharma of seeing the mind and seeing the nature, the dharma of suchness, is the definitive dharma; whereas the methods for reaching the definitive dharma are expedient dharmas. The mark of dharma is existence; the mark of no-dharma is emptiness. Not knowing that the true mind exists, not knowing that true emptiness gives rise to wondrous existence — this view of nonexistence, this view of emptiness, is the view of annihilatory emptiness. If the mind of ultimate reality, the eighth consciousness, did not exist, then from where would all the marks of dharmas, the marks of emptiness, and the marks of illusion come? If one says they come from empty space, that is the heterodox view of voidness — empty space can produce nothing; if one says they come from Mahābrahmā, the Old Mother, God, or Jesus, then from where do they come? Those who hold to annihilatory emptiness deny everything, and thus would also deny cause and effect. Because the law of cause and effect is realized through the eighth consciousness: He stores karmic seeds and outputs karmic seeds, equally actualizing the causes, conditions, and retributions of sentient beings. Not a single dharma is omitted or disordered.

Therefore, sentient beings are born with different genders, appearances, parents, wealth or poverty, lifespans, living environments, and so on — this is because the karmic seeds contained in the eighth consciousness differ. These karmic seeds were created in past lives. A person who can give rise to even a single thought of pure faith toward the passages of the Diamond Sutra has not only broken through the four marks, but also has no marks of any dharmas, and even less has the dharma-mark of annihilatory emptiness in which nothing exists. And those who have broken through the four marks and realized the fruits of the Great or Small Vehicle all accept and believe in the eighth consciousness, the Ālayavijñāna, on which birth and death depend; otherwise, they would not be people who have realized the Path.