The Profound Meaning of the Diamond Sutra from the Yogācāra 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? Because these beings, who are able to remain unattached to the physical marks of the Tathāgata and 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. Having first broken through the four marks, they go on to break through all marks of dharmas, reaching the state of no-marks. This is because the self-natured pure mind originally contains no dharma-mark whatsoever; all the marks it manifests are empty and provisional.

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 elements are dharmas, the three realms are all dharmas, and tathatā 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—distinguished 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, false; 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 points directly to the attainment of buddhahood is a definitive dharma; the dharma of seeing one’s true mind and awakening to one’s true nature, the dharma of tathatā, 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 true mind of suchness, the eighth consciousness, did not exist, then from where would all the dharma-marks, emptiness-marks, and false marks come? If one says they come from empty space, that is the heterodox path of space-worship, for empty space can produce nothing; if one says they come from Mahābrahmā, the Old Mother, God, or Jesus, then from where did they come? Those who hold to annihilatory emptiness deny everything, and thereby also deny cause and effect. For the law of cause and effect is implemented by the eighth consciousness: it is He who stores karmic seeds and outputs karmic seeds, impartially 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, precisely 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 a single thought of pure faith in the passages of the Diamond Sutra has not only broken through the four marks, but also has no marks of any dharmas—still less 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 Mahāyāna or the Hīnayāna—there are none who do not accept and believe in the eighth consciousness, the ālayavijñāna, upon which birth and death depend; otherwise, they would not be persons who have realized the Path.