The Twenty-five Sages' Means of Perfect Penetration in Volume Five of the Śūraṅgama Sūtra: Kauṇḍinya and the Five Bhikṣus

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 said to the great bodhisattvas and arhats: "You great bodhisattvas and arhats were born within my Dharma and have cultivated to fruition as beyond-training (aśaikṣa) arhats of the fourth fruit. I now ask you: when each of you first made the resolve to cultivate and sought to realize the eighteen dhātus, which dhātu did you take as the perfect-penetration dharma gate, and by what method of practice did you enter meditative absorption (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 Fowl Grove, 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 — and we realized the Four Noble Truths through the Buddha's voice. When the Buddha asked us five bhikṣus about our cultivation and realization of the principle of the Four Noble Truths, we had just realized and understood them, and the Tathāgata confirmed us as Ājñāta, having awakened to the secret perfect penetration through the Buddha's subtle wondrous sound of Dharma. We attained the arhat fruit through the sense object of sound. As for the dharma gate of perfect penetration the Buddha asks about, just as we realized it, realization through sound is the most supreme."

The five bhikṣus led by Kaundinya had been cultivating the Way alongside the Buddha ever since 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 samādhis, so Kaundinya also continuously followed the Buddha in practicing the four dhyānas and eight samādhis, with no other method of practice. When the Buddha had attained the four dhyānas and eight samādhis, he still had not obtained the great wisdom of liberation, nor had he become a Buddha. The World-Honored One then knew that merely cultivating meditative concentration alone could not bring liberation, that this was not the method of practice for liberation and buddhahood, and 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, and was so starved that he was nothing but 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 shepherd 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 nor ascetic practice, they believed the Buddha had regressed from the Way. So the five bhikṣus left the Buddha and went elsewhere to cultivate on their own. It was not until after the Buddha attained the Way that he sought out the five bhikṣus and taught them the principle 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 had the four dhyānas and eight samādhis — and they also kept the precepts very well. As soon as they heard the Buddha expound the Dharma, they could instantly carry out contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within meditative concentration and attain realization of the fruit. Only when precepts, concentration, and wisdom are all complete can one attain realization of the fruit. If they had not had 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, beneath the Bodhi tree, beheld the morning star at night and awakened to the Way and became a Buddha, this too could not be separated from the four dhyānas and eight samādhis he had first cultivated with the non-Buddhist teachers; without the foundation of the four dhyānas and eight samādhis, the Buddha could not have awakened to the Way and become a Buddha.

Therefore, although ascetic practice is not itself the Way, without ascetic practice there is also no Way. Appropriate ascetic practice can cultivate and sustain the mind for the Path, can cultivate and sustain the mind of renunciation; it is difficult to have a mind of renunciation amid enjoyment, and difficult to attain the Way. Although the non-Buddhists' four dhyānas and eight samādhis cannot liberate one from birth and death, without the four dhyānas and eight samādhis one likewise cannot be liberated from birth and death, and cannot accomplish the Buddha Way.

The five bhikṣus led by Kaundinya realized perfect penetration through the dhātu of the sense object of sound among the eighteen dhātus, while the other twenty-four sages each realized perfect penetration through their respective sense-object dhātus.