The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Volume Five: The Dharma Gate of Perfect Penetration of Kaundinya and the Five Bhikṣus among the Twenty-Five Sages

Original text:世尊普告众中诸大菩萨。及诸漏尽大阿罗汉。汝等菩萨。及阿罗汉。生我法中。得成无学。吾今问汝。最初发心悟十八界。谁为圆通。从何方便。入三摩地。骄陈那五比丘。即从座起。顶礼佛足。而白佛言。我在鹿苑。及于鸡园。观见如来最初成道。于佛音声。悟明四谛。佛问比丘。我初称解。如来印我。名阿若多。妙音密圆。我于音声。得阿罗汉。佛问圆通。如我所证。音声为上。

Explanation: The World-Honored One addressed the great bodhisattvas and the arhats in the assembly, saying: "You great bodhisattvas and arhats were born within my Dharma and have attained the stage beyond training (aśaikṣa) as fourth-fruit practitioners. I now ask you: when each of you first resolved the mind to cultivate and sought to awaken to the eighteen realms, which realm did you take as the perfect-penetration dharma gate, and by what method of practice did you enter meditative concentration (samādhi)?"

> The five bhikṣus led by Kaundinya immediately rose from their seats, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and said to the Buddha: "At the Deer Park and at the Chicken Garden, we saw with our own eyes the Tathāgata, you, first attain the Way, and teach us the four noble truths—suffering, emptiness, impermanence, and non-self. We awakened to the four noble truths through the Buddha's voice. When the Buddha asked us five bhikṣus about our cultivation and realization of the principles of the four noble truths, we had just realized and understood them, and the Tathāgata confirmed us as 'Ājñāta,' having awakened to the secret and perfect penetration through the Buddha's subtle wondrous sound of Dharma. We attained the arhat fruit through the sense object of sound. When the Buddha asks about the dharma gate of perfect penetration, just as we have realized it, awakening through sound is the most supreme."

Kaundinya and the other four bhikṣus had followed the Buddha and cultivated the Way together from the very beginning when he first left home and went to the Snow Mountains to practice. At that time, the Buddha was following non-Buddhist teachers in cultivating the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, so Kaundinya also continuously followed the Buddha in cultivating the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, with no other method of practice. After the Buddha attained the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, he had still not gained the great wisdom of liberation, nor had he become a Buddha. The World-Honored One then knew that cultivating meditative concentration alone could not bring liberation, and that this was not the method of practice for liberation and buddhahood, so he abandoned the method of solely cultivating concentration.

At that time, the Buddha ate only one sesame seed and one grain of wheat per day, starving until he was skin and bones. The Buddha then realized that mere ascetic practice could not lead to attainment of the Way either, so he abandoned asceticism and went to the Nairañjanā River to bathe. After emerging from the bath, he accepted the goat's milk offered by the herding girl, and after eating, the World-Honored One went to sit beneath the Bodhi tree to investigate the Dharma anew.

When the five bhikṣus led by Kaundinya saw that the Buddha was no longer cultivating meditative concentration or asceticism, they believed the Buddha had regressed from the Way. So the five bhikṣus left the Buddha and went elsewhere to practice alone. It was not until after the Buddha attained the Way that he sought out the five bhikṣus and taught them the principles of the four noble truths, whereupon they immediately attained the arhat fruit.

Why did the five bhikṣus attain realization so quickly? Because their foundation in meditative concentration was excellent—they possessed the four dhyānas and eight absorptions—and their observance of the precepts was also excellent. As soon as they heard the Buddha expound the Dharma, they could instantly carry out contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within concentration and produce results, thereby attaining realization. Only when precepts, concentration, and wisdom are all complete can one attain realization. If they had not possessed meditative concentration, they would have had to first cultivate concentration to completion, and only then could they deliberate and contemplate within concentration—and who knows when they might have attained realization. Therefore, accomplishment in the Buddha's Dharma cannot be separated from the precepts, cannot be separated from profound meditative concentration, and cannot be separated from the wisdom of contemplative practice. When the Buddha saw the morning star one night beneath the Bodhi tree and awakened to the Way and became a Buddha, this too could not have been achieved without the four dhyānas and eight absorptions he had first cultivated with the non-Buddhist teachers. Without the foundation of the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, the Buddha could not have awakened to the Way and become a Buddha.

Thus it is said: although asceticism is not itself the Way, there is also no Way apart from asceticism. Appropriate ascetic practice can cultivate and sustain the mind intent on the Way, and can cultivate and sustain the mind of renunciation. With enjoyment, it is very difficult to have a mind of renunciation, and very difficult to attain the Way. Although the non-Buddhist four dhyānas and eight absorptions cannot liberate one from birth and death, liberation from birth and death is likewise impossible apart from the four dhyānas and eight absorptions, and the Buddha's Way cannot be accomplished without them.

Kaundinya and the five bhikṣus awakened to perfect penetration through the realm of the sense object of sound among the eighteen realms, while the other twenty-four sages each awakened to perfect penetration through their respective sense-object realms.