The Profound Yogācāra Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (81)

Original text:何以故。须菩提。如来说第一波罗蜜。即非第一波罗蜜。是名第一波罗蜜。须菩提。忍辱波罗蜜。如来说非忍辱波罗蜜。是名忍辱波罗蜜。

Explanation: The World-Honored One taught: Why is one who has departed from the four marks said to be foremost and rare, hard to encounter? Subhūti, when the Tathāgata speaks of the foremost pāramitā, there is in fact no mark of a truly existing foremost pāramitā; it is merely given an expedient name, called the foremost pāramitā. When bodhisattvas cultivate the six pāramitās, they can awaken to the true mind and see their nature, reaching the farther shore of nirvāṇa. But these six pāramitās are also without marks; they are not truly existent marks. They are all illusory marks of arising and ceasing conjured forth by the tathāgatagarbha, existing in dependence upon the true mind of suchness, the tathāgatagarbha. They also depend on the illusory body of the bodhisattva's five aggregates for the six pāramitās to be cultivated. Since the body of the five aggregates is not real and is a false mark, then the six pāramitās, which are cultivated in reliance upon the body of the five aggregates, are of course even more a false mark, even more without marks. Therefore the Buddha said: the foremost pāramitā is not the foremost pāramitā; there is no true self-nature of the foremost pāramitā—it is merely named the foremost pāramitā.

The World-Honored One continued: Subhūti, as for the pāramitā of forbearance, the Tathāgata says it is not a truly existent pāramitā of forbearance. Therefore the pāramitā of forbearance is also without marks; it is not a truly existent reality-mark, and thus it is provisionally named the pāramitā of forbearance. What is called the pāramitā of forbearance is in fact just one, or countless, false phenomenal appearances, none of which is reality itself. These false phenomenal appearances are marks of the mental activities of the seven consciousnesses, manifested through the operation of the seven consciousnesses; they are all marks born and manifested by the tathāgatagarbha. On the surface they appear to exist, but in essence they do not exist, and they stand in a relationship of neither identity nor difference with the tathāgatagarbha.

Because the cultivation of these pāramitās of forbearance is a dharma of arising, ceasing, and change, not constant and unchanging: one act of forbearance is accomplished and then ceases; then another act of forbearance arises and again ceases. Countless acts of forbearance constitute the bodhisattva's pāramitā of forbearance, and relying on this, the bodhisattva can reach the farther shore of birth and death.

Acts of forbearance are the conduct of the body of the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses. The five aggregates themselves are already without marks; the seven consciousnesses arise, cease, and change moment by moment, and the six consciousnesses cease once every day—all are false and unreal. How much more so the conduct of forbearance, which exists in dependence upon the five aggregates and the seven consciousnesses: it is even more without marks, even more false and illusory. Therefore the pāramitā of forbearance has no self-nature of its own; it is not self-existent. It is merely a surface appearance, merely a name—a false action and fabrication designated by a name—and its essence is precisely the tathāgatagarbha.