The Profound Yogācāra Meaning of the Diamond Sutra (121)

Chapter Twenty-Four: Incomparable Merit

Original text: 须菩提。若三千大千世界中。所有诸须弥山王。如是等七宝聚。有人持用布施。若人以此般若波罗蜜经。乃至四句偈等。受持读诵。为他人说。于前福德。百分不及一。百千万亿分。乃至算数譬喻所不能及。

Explanation: The World-Honored One said to Subhūti: If someone gathered all the seven treasures in the three-thousandfold great thousand worlds, as numerous as all the Sumeru kings, and gave them away in generosity (dāna), the merit from this would be extremely great, truly immense. But if there is another person who can receive, hold, read, and recite this Diamond Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra—or even just one four-line verse of the Diamond Sutra—and expound it to others, then of the merit gained by these two people, the latter far surpasses the former. The merit from receiving and holding the sūtra is a hundred times, a hundred thousand million times, indeed countless times greater than the merit of one who gives away seven treasures as numerous as Sumeru mountains. The gap between them cannot be calculated by any worldly method of reckoning, nor can it be described by any of the various metaphors of human language—the difference is simply too vast.

One three-thousandfold great thousand world contains a billion, or ten billion, Sumeru mountains. One Sumeru mountain is countless times larger than the Earth, and the Earth itself already has countless hills of various sizes and vast, boundless lands. If a person gave away the seven treasures of just one small hill, that merit would already be incalculable—let alone giving away the seven treasures of the entire Earth, let alone seven treasures as numerous as Sumeru mountains, and still more so, giving away seven treasures as numerous as a billion or ten billion Sumeru mountains. The merit such a person would gain could not be reckoned even by countless computers. Yet the Buddha said that even such immense merit is not great; it falls far short of the merit of receiving, holding, reading, and reciting the Diamond Sutra, differing from it by an enormous margin—incomparable and beyond enumeration. Even if one receives, holds, reads, and recites just a single four-line verse of the Diamond Sutra, the merit gained far exceeds, by countless multiples, the merit of giving away seven treasures as numerous as all the Sumeru mountains in a three-thousandfold great thousand world. How much greater, then, must be the merit of receiving, holding, reading, and reciting the entire Diamond Sutra?

As explained before, those who can truly receive, hold, read, and recite the Diamond Sutra, or the four-line verses within it, are all people who have genuinely seen their true mind and realized the prajñā of true suchness. Only such people have the capacity to receive and hold the Diamond Sutra, only they truly know how to read and recite it, and only they know how to read the Diamond Sutra and how to recite it. The Diamond Sutra entirely expounds the wisdom and virtues of the true mind of prajñā suchness; its principle is profound and ever more profound.

Only after finding the vajra mind (Vajracitta) and realizing the tathāgatagarbha can one understand the dharma of the tathāgatagarbha, recite forth its inner meaning, accept all the dharma principles of the tathāgatagarbha, and gradually practice in accordance with the principle of the tathāgatagarbha, thereby transforming all the mental activities of the deluded mind of the seven consciousnesses. From then on, the afflictions of the deluded seven consciousnesses will gradually be eliminated, afflictive habits will gradually fade, and ignorance will gradually weaken. By cultivating in reliance upon the tathāgatagarbha, one will come to know more profound dharma principles, as well as all the seed contents within the tathāgatagarbha. In this way, the dust-like ignorance (ignorance as numerous as dust) will become ever fewer, until it is finally extinguished completely.