The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, Volume 5: The Twenty-Five Sages' Gateways to Perfect Penetration — Gavāṃpati

Original text:憍梵钵提。即从座起。顶礼佛足。而白佛言。我有口业。于过去劫。轻弄沙门。世世生生。有牛齝病。如来示我一味清净。心地法门。我得灭心。入三摩地。观味之知。非体非物。应念得超世间诸漏。内脱身心。外遗世界。远离三有。如鸟出笼。离垢销尘。法眼清净。成阿罗汉。如来亲印。登无学道。佛问圆通。如我所证。还味旋知。斯为第一。

Explanation: Gavāṃpati rose from his seat, bowed at the Buddha's feet, and replied to the Buddha: "In the past I committed the karma of verbal wrongdoing; during a past kalpa I ridiculed a śramaṇa, saying that he ate like an ox chewing grass. From then on, life after life, whenever I ate, it was like an ox chewing its cud. Later, when I encountered the Buddha, He taught me a method of cultivation called the pure mind-ground dharma gate of the single taste. Cultivating according to the Buddha's instruction, I extinguished mental activities and saw all dharmas as empty, with no thoughts arising. Thereupon I entered samādhi and contemplated the knowing nature directed at the object of taste—it has no self-body of its own and is not any kind of thing; it is empty. As soon as this thought arose, I transcended all the worldly defilements, my mind attained purity, and within the body of the five aggregates both body and mind fell away; there was no longer any body-and-mind, and toward the world outside the five-aggregate body the mind also became empty of it—there was no longer any world. Thus the mind departed from the existent dharmas of the three realms, like a bird escaping from a cage. All afflictions and defilements were eliminated, all dust-like sense objects vanished, the dharma eye became pure, and I became an arhat of the fourth fruit. The Tathāgata personally certified that I had reached the stage of beyond training (aśaikṣa). The Buddha asks about the dharma gate of perfect penetration; as I myself realized it—turning back from taste and reversing the knowing nature—this is the foremost perfect penetration dharma gate." Anyone who has realized the fruits of the path invariably engaged in deep, extremely subtle contemplative practice (vipaśyanā-caryā) within meditative concentration, realizing the emptiness of the five aggregates and the emptiness of the eighteen realms, thereby emptying both body and mind and breaking through the four marks. It is only that the degree of emptiness differs and the levels of the marks broken through differ, and thus the fruits realized differ accordingly. There is simply no one who can realize the fruits without upholding the precepts, without cultivating meditative concentration, and without engaging in contemplative practice. One who realizes the fruits has fulfilled the thirty-seven factors of enlightenment; there has never been anyone who realized the fruits relying solely on the mind consciousness's deliberation, inference, or analysis, nor anyone who, after realizing the fruits, still had heavy afflictions and created evil karma everywhere like an ordinary being. A person whose mind is empty does not see dharmas—does not see any dharma worth committing evil karma for. Therefore, a person whose mind still grasps at marks and is not empty has definitely not eliminated self-view (ātma-dṛṣṭi)—not even being a stream-enterer candidate, let alone a stream-enterer (Srotaāpanna). The verbal karma that Gavāṃpati created in the past—ridiculing a śramaṇa—brought about such a great retribution of evil karma. Nowadays many people have heavy afflictions, and the evil karma they create toward śramaṇas is far greater than ridicule and mockery by many times over; their retribution in future lives will certainly be far greater by many times over. What should these ignorant people do? They should consider and weigh this clearly themselves. But many people, out of ignorance, will not seriously consider or weigh it; they will simply undergo the retribution of these evil karmic deeds. And so the beings of the three evil realms press forward one after another, never to be cut off.